Three weeks had not gone by fast enough but our return date was soon approaching. The days were filled with family, last minute shopping, food and minimal sightseeing.
I was told that I needed to visit the uncle who was shot a week before our arrival. My husband and motherinlaw had made the initial trip to the hospital in the first few days but now the UK aunt, uncle and our cousins were now going to make the trip to Defense to see him off before his sons took him to Dubai for the surgery.
Squeeze me? Was I supposed to go by myself? The girls were not obligated to go and since the rest of our immediate family had 'done their duty,' I was the only one left. At first, I flatly refused. When I did, the entire family looked at me like I was some kind of traitor. "He will be deeply offended if he knows you have come here all the way from Canada and you didn't visit him," my aunt explained.
I sat motionless, unable to speak or defend my decision. It was true. The least I could do was show my support and visit the poor man. I turned to my husband's uncle who was a police officer. "Can I borrow a bullet-proof vest?" He laughed and told me his posting had changed and that he was the Chief of all police traffic controllers. He thought I was joking but I was serious. We were returning to the scene of the crime. Someone had targetted our uncle and if they saw a steady stream of visitors, the cuplrits would come to know that they didn't finish him off. My imagination ran wild as I we got into the car around 9pm that evening.
Was this real? What was I doing? I turned my head towards the car window and saw my reflection. I did not recognize myself. I had bags under my eyes, my skin was pale and I had lost seven pounds after two weeks. As we drove to Defense, the scenery looked surreal to me. I closed my eyes and pictured my neighborhood. My house, the 404, my family, the immense greenery, the tall trees, clean air and...and...what was I really missing?
I opened my eyes and realized where I was. Pakistan. Not my country, I angrily decided. But my sole purpose was to come here and show my children their roots. Where they came from. Pssht! We weren't even born here. I left with the goal to obtain our family tree to trace our heritage and come back to Canada and tell everyone who I was. But as we drove through the Pakistani streets, I had never felt more confused about my identity until that moment. My confusion blindsided me and I suddenly felt vulnerable. This was not my home. And I didn't care about anyone or anything. Forget the shopping, forget the parties, forget the family. My heart felt heavy and I frowned at my reflection. I heard laughter and realized it was my cousin, holding her 18 month old son in her lap, laughing and enjoying the car ride. I longed to feel the same.
We arrived to the house and I covered my head with my shawl. I did not want to see nor be seen. But as soon as they opened the gate, I saw two bullet holes. His wife pointed them out to us. I wanted to run back into the car. There was nowhere to run. We entered the living room and there sat our uncle in a wheelchair. I walked over to him and he patted me on my head (this is how the younger generation receives respect and love from their elders). I sat on the other side of the living room next to his wife. She offered us cold drinks and then proceeded to show me his X-ray where the third bullet remained lodged in his pelvis. Out of respect, I took the XRay in my hand and pretended I was looking at it. But through the transparency of the report, I saw the sad face of our uncle. The same face that looked back at me in the car window.
It was then I realized what I was missing. Peace. I did not have this the minute our plane touched down at Lahore airport on July 19. I watched our uncle sit uncomfortably in his wheelchair. He looked up returned my gaze and for a second, I felt a bond. We had the same handicap but his was physical and mine was emotional. Peace. We think that there is no peace when we have chaos, when we have to work hard, or when things just don't go our way. I remembered images of the Gulf, Iraq and Afganistan war. I remembered the smiling faces of Palestinian children playing atop rubble from buildings destroyed by missile attacks. And I was shocked how they could smile in the middle of chaos. This was their day to day life and I thought they had no choice. But at the end of the day, we all have a choice -- to choose the way we look at life despite what happens. We have peace when we learn to still our minds despite what is going on around us.
On the way home, I looked out the window and this time, did not close my eyes. I took in all the sights. The dirty streets, the beggars, the historical monuments, the congested roundabouts. And I accepted it. This was Pakistan and I had to accept the reality. I looked up at the sky which once was unfamiliar to me and realized it was the same sky in Canada. I was leaving in three days. I had to make the most of it and live my life.
I looked back at my reflection in the window --this time, she was smiling back at me.
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