Most likely, though, they had turned to bones, bones dressed in tattered clothing. That’s what everyone told her, but Amal insisted on burying them properly. She finally paid the required amount, which she had gathered by selling sweets over the course of four months.
The work began, and the moment of truth arrived. Today was the day of deliverance, the day Amal would finally be able to sleep. They started to retrieve the bodies, as expected they were bones, like everyone else. In such moments, crying brings immense relief, but no tears come. She felt empty, she felt the silence, and was overwhelmed by a deep desire not to exist.
After her family’s bodies were brought out, a surprise awaited her. Her mother’s body emerged intact, just as it had been, only without eyes. Her eye sockets were empty, but her body had not decomposed.
“Oh my God, Your mercy and compassion,’ Amal shouted. She asked, “Why isn’t my mother just bones?” Someone explained to her that it depended on the ventilation and the environment surrounding the body. Then she asked, “But why are her eyes empty?” They told her that the eyes are among the first organs to decompose. Amal thought deeply-even when we’re alive, our eyes decay, and we choose to look away, unable to see.
Amal sat before her mother’s body and her family’s as they were being buried. She wept, wept with a burning sorrow. The kind of cry her heart needed, like burning embers, with tears flowing endlessly. This was her deliverance… it was her deliverance. “Rest in peace… rest in peace.”