Saiqa Ashraf
On the morning of 16 April 2024, around 8 in the morning, the Jhelum River bore witness to a tragedy far heavier than its waters. A small boat carrying 15 innocent souls, parents holding their children close, ordinary lives wrapped in ordinary moments, capsized suddenly and without mercy. Within seconds, laughter faded, voices vanished, and futures were pulled into the river’s icy stillness. What the news later labeled as an incident became, for the families left behind, a lifetime of unanswered questions, fragile hope, and unbearable grief. Among those shattered families was an elderly mother, forever waiting for a son who never found his way back home.
Time continued its journey for the world, careless and unbothered. Days slipped into months, months dissolved into years. One year, eight months, and twenty-six days passed, counted not by calendars but by tears. Occasions came and went without meaning, seasons changed without comfort, yet for that mother, time froze on the day her son disappeared. Every sunrise brought a silent question-Will they bring him back. Every sunset reopened a wound that never healed. And then, after nearly two years of unbearable waiting, destiny revealed its cruelest truth, she was handed her son’s foot and the shoe he once wore, not a reunion, not a farewell, but a fragment of a life that had been taken from her forever.
Not his voice.
Not his smile.
Not his arms to hold her.
Just a part of his body. Just an object he once wore.
What storms must have raged within her heart during those endless two years? What language could ever carry the crushing weight of waiting like that? We are being protected by our daily routines and safe returns, we can never truly hold what that mother survived, not through words, not through imagination, not even through tears. Each morning, she woke up carrying a hope she never chose. A fragile whisper that followed her everywhere, maybe today. Maybe today there would be news. Maybe today he would return, worn down by time, exhausted, but breathing. For most, hope is a light. For her, it became a quiet torment. It refused to fade, clinging to her even when reason pleaded for surrender.
She must have listened closely to every sound outside her door, mistaking footsteps for her son’s return. She must have prepared meals thinking, “If he comes hungry”. She must have kept his clothes untouched, his belongings exactly where he left them, as if disturbing them would mean accepting the truth she was not ready to face.
And society? Society moves on quickly. After condolences fade, after news cycles change, pain becomes private. The world expects grieving mothers to be strong, to accept fate, to rely on faith. But how does a mother accept the disappearance of her son? Be it 1 year old or 50 years old, doesn’t matter. He was her child. How does she bury someone without a body? How does she mourn when there is no grave to cry beside?
Not only did the river steal her son for two years, but it also stole her calm, her sleep, and her air. Her heart must have shaken each time she heard the word Jhelum. Water must have seemed like an accusation whenever it was spoken. Life-giving rivers had deceived her.
And then came the day of “closure.”
They handed her a foot.
They handed her a shoe.
Imagine the remnants of the child she once carried in her womb in her shaking hands. A womb that shielded him from suffering, hunger, and terror, only to be brutally taken away by the outside world. Once, that shoe walked next to her. That foot used to laugh, run, and live. Time and tragedy had stripped it of its dignity, leaving it mute and dead. At that moment, the hope that had tormented her for two years finally crumbled. Not kindly, but harshly. The pain of uncertainty has been replaced by the pain of confirmation. There is a strange cruelty to delayed truths, which can lead to endless suffering without relief. What should her condition be today?
Her body can still breathe, but her soul has aged decades in two years. There must always be an emptiness in his eyes that no words, prayers, or comfort can fill. Mothers don’t just “move on.” They learn to exist in absence, carrying their grief like a shadow that never disappears. This tragedy doesn’t just concern her. It is a mirror held up to us as a society. We talk about accidents, statistics, negligence and compensation, but what about liability? And security? What about a system that quietly malfunctions until lives are lost? Why should poor families pay in blood for their carelessness? The children drowned. The parents drowned. Futures contracts drowned. Still, the river continues to flow, saved by justice. This old mother does not ask for sympathy. She demands recognition that her son was alive, that he mattered, that his life was more than just a number on a report. Her tears remind us that behind every tragedy there is a human story, and it doesn’t end when the news stops.
We may never fully understand how she felt these past two years. We may never understand what it means to receive only fragments of a loved one. But we can let his pain shake us, humble us, and awaken our conscience. Because even if we don’t feel her sadness today, tomorrow someone’s mother may be standing by the river, waiting, praying, slowly losing her heart.
And no mother deserves to wait two years…
Just receive your child piecemeal.
A mother lost her son, grief shattered her soul, drowned her voice, and left her heart crying forever in silence.
(The author is a freelancer. She hails from Budgam)
