Editor’s Note: The views expressed here are those of the author’s and don’t necessarily represent or reflect the views of MangoBaaz.
Some time ago, Amal Khan, a journalist, posted her experience with a stranger who treated her brother, with special needs, rather strangely. It brought to light a discussion about how many in Pakistan aren’t equipped with enough tools to learn not to react to someone “different” in a manner that may be hurtful to them.
Today, I address my essay to the lady who shattered my sister enough that she wanted to risk her life after her remark. I also address it to Essa, Amal’s brother, because I have a sibling who, according to some, is “different”, too. So here goes:
Dear Stranger,
You were out and about, having a good time, eating good food and enjoying the time with those you love as a break from your otherwise busy and hectic life. Just like my sister and me.
My sister is brave. She is confident.
She is full of life and all she ever wants is to live a normal life. A normal life that includes her sitting in a restaurant and having a good time with me. A life where she brushes off the casual stares strangers cast at her masked face.
I love the way she always smiles back with her eyes at strangers who are staring at her because she’s “slightly” different from their idea of normal, because she’s wearing a strange black filter mask in a place where nobody else is wearing it.
But you, dear stranger, crossed all boundaries that day and you made sure that my sister’s big smile gets wavered, her confidence gets shattered and her idea of a casual, happy time out with her sister, me, gets ruined.
You asked my sister pointing towards her filter mask, with narrowed eyes, “Hey excuse-me? I’m sorry to ask but do you have some kind of disease?”
When you said that, I quickly turned all my focus to my sister and kept staring deep into her eyes in case I was needed to jump in and remove her from the situation before it got worse. She remained strong. She sat there without a tear in her eyes, she sat there without an emotion. But I saw the damage that one sentence did to her.
My beautiful little sister, was lost for words.
Her smile was wiped off her face. And I was angry. Oh, I was angry. I wanted to tell that woman what disease my sister had. I wanted to tell her all about it. But all I could muster was, “she won’t harm you”.
Dear lady, whoever you were, next time you ask someone a question that is so personal that it makes them uncomfortable sharing with you, I beg you to think twice. Prefixing “I’m sorry” before your question doesn’t make it alright.
You do not know what my sister has been through. What you called a “disease” was her losing both of her kidneys at the age of 19. Holes being dug into her throat so a tube known as a Double-lumen endobronchial tube (which is probably longer than your arm) could be inserted into it, so that all her blood could be filtered with a dialysis machine, is what that poor soul had to suffer through in order to continue living. Her arm was sliced open to join her two major veins so needles could be poked into those veins (known as a fistula) every other day for her dialysis, that was painful and made her very, very sad and very, very sick.
At age of 20, her blood pressure shot up. She bled so much that one time during her dialysis that we almost thought we had lost her.
She wasn’t allowed to drink water. Water, that is something not one of us thinks anything about, water that is our lifeline, used to refresh us, she wasn’t allowed to have it. Giving her water in bottle caps to keep her mouth moist is still a fresh memory, for me. You know what used to happen when she drank a little more than that bottle cap? The extra water used to gather up in her belly, which swelled to the size of a football and the removal used to require lots more pipes and syringes, hospital visits and extremely painful nights.
People like you, who didn’t know her, and who had just met her used to ask her, then, “Oh, you’re pregnant?”, without knowing she was fighting to survive and not even thinking of giving life to someone else.
And then her blood pressure dropped dramatically during another dialysis and at that moment, my mother collapsed on the floor thinking she has lost her daughter.
But my sister survived through it all.
She didn’t smile much during this ordeal, you really can’t blame her. She didn’t even eat or talk to us. All she did was cry and sleep. But she recently got her kidney transplant and things are getting better.
That day, when we met you, she was happy. I remember how happily she was chatting with me and how happily she was waiting for her food and her dessert. She was wearing a black filter mask and people were staring, but she was ignoring it all and was so happy.
But you ruined everything with one insensitive question of yours. The mask that made you cringe isn’t there to prevent from something inside my sister from harming you. Of course, had she been suffering a “disease” that could have affected you we weren’t heartless or ignorant enough to parade her through the whole world. The mask is because of the transplant medicines, that have hurt her immune system and she has become sensitive to germs from the world around her. She is being protected by that mask from you.
But your question reminded her of her bad times. You reminded her everything. She sometimes takes a risk and removes her mask to smile at people like you, not caring about the “diseases” these people might hold for her.
She removed the mask after you went away and she refused to wear it the next day we went out.
It hurt me to see how much of an impact a single sentence uttered ignorantly by a stranger had on her, that she would risk her health and life just so she can look normal for you, dear stranger.
Dear Essa, after I read what you went through, the incident that happened with me and my sister pinched me even more.
I’d like to say to Essa, that you’re brave, you have courage, you are beautiful in your own special way and don’t let anyone make you feel any different. This is what I told to my sister too that day, when the stranger broke her spirit.
Essa and my sister have different stories, different struggles, but I need to say this so nobody feels the way he or my sister felt, even if their situations are somewhat different.
To everyone else, the next time you stare at someone because they look “different” or you feel they have something different going on than you’re used to seeing, instead of asking an insensitive question, stay quiet. Smile, if your eyes meet them, a smile doesn’t hurt or kill anyone, even though a smile may be contagious.
If a person’s “difference” is making you feel unsafe and uncomfortable, why don’t you get up and leave?
Why make it hard for someone who already has it hard enough? Words hold so much power. One little question, you so indifferently ask, can shatter someone’s courage, their confidence, their smile, their bravery and their will to fight and live. You can never pay a price to get something like that back,
So please, think before you speak. And let beautiful and brave people like Essa and my sister have a “normal” day with their loved ones. We all just want to feel normal, after all.
Yours,
Fellow Stranger.
Cover image via: precisionnutrition.com
