Marine Soldiers' Mothers tale Of Endless Sorrow Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

Hold on Mother - Hold on to your patience -
said the child to his mother in whispers
which only she could sense and understand;
but as the passage was not so wide to let him out
he kept popping out his head;
as she struggled, the infant's head also struggled
to get out as the water bag had already broken;
the nurses and the doctors kept saying - push, push.
push hard, push as hard as you can,
as they kept insisting, the mother tried harder
as she writhed in pain;
sweating and panting she did it
and into this world alighted her little child
more sweet than all the baby pictures
she had ever seen;
it was a boy they had told her
as she held him to her bosom
and kissed him with immense joy;
and though so exhausted was she
and though so weak with blood loss
yet she made little promises to him
which no infant ever comprehends:
she told him- my child I will look after you
with utmost care until the day I die.
Every morning and night, all thro the day
she fed him at her breasts;
she provided him with nutrition and foods
which made him smile every time his mom he saw;
when he spoke the first word - Ma -
she felt all so delighted and proud;
when he learnt to walk she held his hand
and took him everywhere
until he could run and not fall;
both were a team,
both understood each other so well.
But as he grew into a man -
a soldier he chose to be;
and that was the moment of glory
as every mother always wants to see her child
follow his dream and independently live his future;
but this time he was sent on a mission
to another country very far from home;
across the borders in a city called Kabul
he stood there as a soldier of strength
with a gun in his hands;
suddenly in a bomb explosion he just perished
leaving back a heartache so deep
in his old mother's heart
as he was only forty five and too young to die.
So silently in her sleep she now weeps.
even his wife and his children feel an anguish
so hard to bear, so difficult to accept
but they all knew he was a soldier
and soldiers often go to wars
and sometimes lose their lives and never return.
And as they grieve they know
they will have to live with this reality-
having no dad to call out in moments of need
having no husband to hug when depressed
the tears of a mother which no one can stop
as she always kept recollecting that day
when he was born and the doctors and nurses
kept telling her - push- push, push hard
so that he comes quickly in this world
but now so quickly was he gone
in that bomb explosion.
And there will be many mothers who will wake up
at night and utter their sons names, several times;
And when too unbearable will their sorrow
each one will sit, think and ask -
Had I not allowed my son to be a soldier
to defend our own country and our own people?
Why was my boy then sent to Afghanistan
where terror reigns and death is so instant?
Will he never come home again?
Is it not that a soldier always commits himself
and his patriotism to his own nation
or is this the fate I had to face that as I live
the son I bore gets torn apart into splinters
by a bomb while defending another country?