Mother Grief

She makes her way slowly toward us, head bowed, picking her way carefully on the gravel street. Her scarf nearly hides her face and even from a distance we can almost feel her sadness. The women we're sitting with whisper softly to us, 'She's the one whose son died.'

Her face is bleak with grief. It feels like an invasion of her privacy to even approach her, but the women are encouraging us to hear her story. So we rise from our seats and walk to meet her.

"Hello, our names are Sue and Elaine and we arrived two days ago in Osh, because we heard about the situation here and wanted to help. Would you like to talk?"

She keeps her head low, but she reaches into her bag and pulls out an ID card; it's her son's, the only thing that remains of his. Central Asians don't smile for photographs and it gives an added sadness, as though he, on that date when the photo was snapped long before, had a premonition of his fate. Shot down at age 25. So much life ahead, but now his body lies anonymously in the dirt. This story would be singularly tragic yet it's one of hundreds.

She indicates she lives right on down that street and we tentatively follow her into her fire-scarred hovli. She points out the room where he and his bride would have lived, had they had a chance to marry. And we learn how her yard held the family of an older son as well and there in the ashes, we see the frame of a child's bicycle and a small plastic toy that somehow escaped the inferno.

We cry with her. We hug her and tell her we care and we won't forget her story. We tell her to hug and kiss her other children and grandchildren every night and tell them how special they are to her. Life is like that; we can never take anything for granted. Her tragic face illustrates this all too well. Weep for the mothers whose sons died before their time.