My daughter, strong but unfortunate: Soheila’s Mother

Written BY: Zahra Rashidi It is not typical for a teenage girl to go through such an immense tragedy, but 17-year-old Soheila lost four family members and saw her mother try to take her own life. Now, she is the one looking after her family. Soheila is 17 years old and supports herself alone, as […]

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Written BY: Zahra Rashidi

It is not typical for a teenage girl to go through such an immense tragedy, but 17-year-old Soheila lost four family members and saw her mother try to take her own life. Now, she is the one looking after her family.

Soheila is 17 years old and supports herself alone, as she has lost three of her family members in separate incidents. These events were too much for her mother, leading her to suicide.

While her mother’s suicide attempt was unsuccessful, the damage it caused to her has left a lasting impact on her life.

While Soheila was experiencing the new chapter of her adolescence, her father and two brothers were killed on the front lines of the war in the province of Kunduz. She had not yet recovered from the shock of this incident when her other brother in Kabul became a victim of an explosion while heading to work and never returned home.

Soheila remembers that day when her brother went to work, and moments later, as she sat behind the window, she heard a sound and a thick column of smoke appeared in the distance. She told her mother that there must have been an explosion, never for a moment thinking that her brother might be one of the victims of this explosion.

Soheila sat in mourning for her brother, still unable to believe the deaths of her father and two other brothers.

Zubaida, Sohila’s mother, could not bear this chain of bitterness. After seeing her son’s bloodied body, she threw herself from the second floor of the house in an attempt to end her own life and survived after being taken to the hospital.

Soheila, deeply immersed in recent events in her life, has not realized that her 20-year-old brother has also slowly succumbed to a neurological illness following the recent events. While Mustafa is the last beacon of hope for Soheila and the entire family, he, too, falls prey to a neurological disease. His condition worsens day by day until he loses his memory completely.

She wakes up the nights on the streets and only occasionally visits home. Nevertheless, this has led Soheila to tighten her belt for caring for her mother, a sick brother, and another younger sister and brother, and she struggles with challenges to earn a piece of bread.

These events created a gap between Soheila and the years when she should have been a teenager and studying, and she suddenly found herself in a store that wanted to borrow money. She says, “I borrowed money from the nearest store next to our house, and with the money I got from the shopkeeper, I bought pens and plastic bags. For the first time, I stood on the streets and managed to sell some of them.”

While Soheila was busy selling pens and plastic bags from morning till evening on the streets of Kabul, she was responsible for finding her brother in the alleys and markets and bringing him home at night.

Soheila says, “I was very deserving in school. I had good grades, but after the ban on girls attending school and the challenges of life, now that I go out to the streets to sell pens, my friends and classmates make fun of me, and it’s very hurtful for a girl to be mocked by her peers.”

The mockery of her friends and classmates made her stay away from the streets for a while, but her family’s financial situation left her with no other option. This inevitability led her to ignore the comments of those around her and return to the streets. She adds, “Yesterday there was no work, and I returned home empty-handed. We did not even have a piece of bread. But fortunately, our generous neighbour had given alms last night and sent us four pieces of bread.”

Soheila is afraid of winter. She worries about her family and knows that winter will bring hardships. She lives with her family in the highest part of Kabul city, up in the mountains, in a non-standard house. The fear of the roof of their house collapsing worries Soheila, and she also thinks about how to provide for her sick mother and her younger sister and brother with the money for winter fuel.

Zubaida, Soheila’s mother, says, “I’m worried about Soheila’s future, as she works on the streets during the day. Relatives and people we know say nasty things about my daughter.”

According to Zubaida, Soheila is strong but unfortunate: “While Soheila is a girl, and girls from the perspective of many families are considered helpless, she has acted like a thousand sons for me and my family. She has tried to keep our lives going. She is a strong girl but unfortunate.”

In addition to working and providing for her family’s needs, Soheila has to travel kilometres to fetch water because they lack water: “While carrying water on the way, I fell to the ground and broke my hand. Now, my younger brother does this job until my hand heals.”

Khaled, Soheila’s 12-year-old brother, who has been deeply affected after the deaths of their two brothers and their father, says, “My only source of hope is my sister Soheila, and she helps me a lot with my studies.”

While crying, Soheila says, “Being an orphan and having no support is very difficult. This homeland first took my father away from me, then my brother, and later, my other brother, who was my last hope.”

She continues, “Growing up, I was just finding my place in life. I wanted to be carefree like other girls, but I found myself in the mourning of my loved ones…”

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