Brave Lady

It was the seventh day of Ramazan when our world quietly began to fall apart, though none of us knew it yet. That morning, a message arrived from Saudi Arabia. Our father had died in a tragic accident. He was thousands of miles away, and only one person in our family was told immediately our mother.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She didn’t let even a shadow of her grief fall on our faces. That day, and for the next four days, she continued to wake us up for sehri, served iftar, and smiled as if nothing had changed. Behind her silence, she was carrying a storm. We had no idea.

We only found out the truth five days later when our father’s body arrived in the village. That day, people gathered around our home, and someone quietly said the words: “Your father is no more.” It felt like time stopped. Everything we had known, every bit of normal life, changed in an instant. But our mother had already lived through that moment five days before. And for all that time, she had kept it inside just so we could eat, pray, and rest without fear.

At that time, I and my brother Sultan Salahuddin had just completed our matric exams and were waiting for our results. Elder brother Khursheed Ali was in his second semester at University. Our eldest brother, Dr Muhammad Suliman, was in his fourth year of MBBS at a private medical college. And our youngest brother, Barkat Ali, was still in school, unaware of how much weight had just fallen on our family.

After our father’s funeral, the reality of life without him settled in. We were lost financially, emotionally, and mentally. There were university fees, school expenses, daily survival all with no source of income.

But our mother stood like a wall.

She looked at each of us and said, “If I have to sell my jewelry or land, I will. But I will not let you leave your education. You will complete what your father dreamed for you.”

That wasn’t just a mother’s emotional promise. It was a plan. A decision. A path forward.

Our maternal uncles supported us, and we’re thankful for them. But even with their help, our mother didn’t sell her jewelry. She didn’t sell our land. She carried the responsibility herself. Quietly. With strength that even we didn’t fully understand at the time.

She made sure every one of us continued school and university. She was up before us in the mornings and awake long after we had gone to sleep. She prayed for us. Waited for our returns. Hid her tears and showed only courage. Even Barkat Ali, our youngest, stayed in school because she never let his childhood be stolen by grief.

Years have passed since that Ramazan. Today, we are all close to success. One step away from finishing what we started. The youngest is almost done with school. The rest of us are moving forward with the same strength she gave us.

Everything we are everything we will become is because of her.

She is more than our mother. She is the backbone of our story. She is the light that kept burning when everything went dark.

She is our brave lady.

And this story, every word of it, every success that follows belongs to her.