Remembering Benazir Bhutto… A Dark Night Ten Years Ago

Source: AP Photo/B.K.Bangash

Being just a mile away from that fateful occurrence… I recall that night ten years ago.

I recall the 27th of December, the darkest of nights…

It struck our hearts like thunder.

She was meant to shine like the sun that day.

But went down to leave a dark void forever.

Who cares what day it was? Who cares where you were?

You knew that there was rioting on the streets and that you somehow had to save yourself from it…

That you had to save your car or bike from burning… (Not that I had one, or will ever have one in a decade…)

But our minds were too numb to think about that.

The nations’ mind was too numb to think about that.

Somebody else was doing the rioting and the looting.

Our country was burned and looted the moment we saw her fall.

It felt as if something was lost… Something precious… Something that would never to return to us…

It felt as if someone was lost.

Someone you wished you had met just once…

Someone you wished you had known only for a while…

Life is not fair… Did not even let us the chance to hear her again…

To see her again…

To meet her…

Even when we were in the same town as she was… The same street virtually, before they pulled the trigger…

Before that bomb went off…

With it died so much more than her…

With it died our hopes and dreams…

Everything, we believed in. And it wasn’t much to begin with..

 

Not that we knew this when we were younger, stupider, naïver…

But now we know that we may never have the likes of her again in our lives…

We may never ever see what leadership like that means with this nation ever, ever again…

This meant that we may never hear from her again ever, ever again…

The End.

 

Thank you for choosing us to lead.

We may not have been strong enough to save you, or value your leadership.

But let us hope that we are able to honor you in your death.

Let us hope we have this much of human decency left…