There are many ways of dying. So many ways to die. So many ways. A Pakistani woman died a few days ago. She is dead. She died at the hands of her family. She must have tried to protest or fight off the assault. I can imagine her screaming out her father and brothers name: “Please! Help me! No!”. I can hear her screaming even now. Calling out helplessly. I can almost sense her fear as the first stone cast her body, she must have known what was to come. Looking to her father who has aided in both her creation and her destruction. As she continued to scream the sticks and stones only grew in number and size. They wanted blood. They had come for her blood. Blood to be shed in the name of honor. I see her catching her final fleeting breaths, in pain and agony. I can imagine her surrendering to her fate. Did she pray to God? to Allah? What were her final thoughts as she lay there? Onlookers silent but hungry with shame and a sick desire for a free show. A cheap spectacle to ease their own suffering for a moment.Standing back and watching her soul leave her body, watching her spirit pray love over her defeat. They see it all, hungrily taking it in. And much too soon all that was left was a corpse and a vague story of how a woman loved a man but should not have because her family was against it so they stoned her to death for dishonoring their wishes by loving who she should not have.But now all that is left is a dead woman outside a court house. Ladies and gentlemen, here is justice.
I’ve heard of these so called “honor killings” many times before but this story really struck something within me. Atrocious things are happening on this beautiful planet. The irony of this woman’s unnecessary murder is that she was killed outside a court house. Killed by her own kin, her own people not by strangers or mad men. She was killed by the ones she loved for the crime of loving who they could not.