Jabalpur Incident:A Mother Never Loses

 The news that was playing on TV shook Iqra to the core. Her eyes were fixed on the screen, but her heart was restless, heavy with fear and sorrow. The report was on a tragic accident at Bargi Dam in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. A group of smiling vacationers had abruptly turned into a massacre and screams.

She sat next to h

er little son, Shad, the one who is lost in his toys. But Iqra was no longer thinking over in the room--he was wholly concentrated by one heartbreaking circumstance of the news a mother who had her little child firmly in her arms and is fighting to the last breath.

The news anchor said that she could have saved herself. But she did not wish to drop her child. Though the cold waves dragged him down, she still held him against her body and before long, the two had vanished into the silence. Iqra started crying and the tears started flowing down her cheeks. So, unconsciously, she drew Shad to her and embraced him. Shad raised his eyes innocently, and said, “Ammi… what happened?” Iqra kept silent a bit. She had no words, but an answer. Finally, she whispered, Nothing, my child... just remain close to me. Iqra was not able to sleep that night. The same scene continued playing in her head- the mother fighting against the waves, her child.

clinging to her. She wondered--had that mother lost? Her heart answered—no. She may have lost the battle of life, but she gave a new meaning to the word “mother.” She demonstrated that the love of a mother is greater than fear, more than danger, more than even death. First the following morning, Iqra was observing Shad as he prepared to go to school. All the small things he did seemed to be more valuable one tying his shoes, picking up his bag, smiling without having any care in the world.

Shad laughed and inquired, Ammi, what is it you want to look at me like that? Iqra smiled but the tears remained in her eyes. “Just like that.” When Shad went off to school there was nothing about the house. Iqra sat next to the window and looked out on the sky. There was one question which reverberated in her mind--would she do the same should such a moment ever come? And the answer was in the depths-- “Yes.” This is what it is to be a mother. A mother does not deliver a child but she lives with her child. She derives her joy in the smile of her child and turns into the barrier to all the suffering.

When Shad came back to school in the evening, he ran into her arms. “Ammi! I received a star to-day! Iqra hugged him tightly, as if she never wanted to let him go. “Mashallah… my son.”

It was still there, but even more powerful than that was a belief--that love of a mother is more powerful than any fear. Shad said, just before going to sleep, at night, asking, Ammi, you never ever leave me, right? Tea-filled the eyes of Iqra. She took him to her heart, and said, “Never… not ever.”

Perhaps she would never have to experience the same thing as that mother but her love was just as real. She prayed in her heart to that great unknown mother-- May God give her peace... Then she closed her eyes. And that night, Iqra slept, at last-- since she had learnt one thing: A mother never gives up.