11 children, 50 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren: A family’s ‘source of strength’
On August 16, 2024, my grandmother bade farewell to this world. Her name was Antama and she left behind 11 children, 50 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. She raised and nurtured 11 children, losing two of them in childhood to the fast-flowing waters of a stream that flowed behind her home. Three sons studied up to the master’s level; two are university professors. All of her daughters learned a skill, with one a good tailor, another a good homemaker, another a good teacher, and another a good midwife. I, who am writing these lines, am a writer from the lineage of Antama. Her father, a learned mullah of his time, gave her this strange name.
My grandmother had a daughter who was the same age as me, her first grandchild. She had a son the same age as my brother, and, up until my mother’s fifth child, Antama gave birth simultaneously with my mother’s own childbirths. When I wanted to write about her, I remembered that she was “a woman who bore children and had grandchildren.” I don’t know if this was an advantage for her or an insult.
I remember how she hid her last childbirth from my uncle. She didn’t rest at all that day. By the afternoon, when my uncles were expected to arrive at her home, she busied herself with daily chores so they wouldn’t notice she had just given birth. She had hidden the newborn in a corner. Despite her pain, she held herself upright so they wouldn’t know that she had a new baby. She gave birth to her last child at the age of 45, a long time from her first pregnancy at the age of 13.
She worked hard her whole life. For a long time, she was the family’s main bread baker. She was a tailor, sewing cloaks and coats. She remained faithful to the needle and the art of sewing until her last breath. She had an active mind and worked with my grandfather in their home clinic, where she was knowledgeable about all kinds of medicines. People knocked on her door in the middle of the night to get her to save women in labour.
The night she passed away, one of her daughters was by her side. I asked my aunt what Antama said as she was dying. She replied, “At the time of death, she said nothing. She just endured the pain and asked for water two or three times.” She had written in the family’s WhatsApp group, “Mother died. She was alone.” This message made everyone cry. Yet she wasn’t alone as one of her daughters was with her. But perhaps a woman who had six daughters and five sons expected the gazes of at least three daughters and two sons at the time of her death.
My grandmother loved to talk. She had countless stories. She wasn’t a tiresome talker, but talked a lot when she found her audience. With me, with my mother, with my aunts, and with her daughters-in-law, she would weave tales and stories, turning days into nights and nights into days. Her stories didn’t follow a straight line. They had twists and turns, ups and downs. They had proverbs and sayings. She didn’t like crying. Like my paternal grandmother, she believed that crying brought bad luck to the family. She didn’t like talking about regrets and shortcomings. When we complained about a grandchild or child, she would say, “What can I do? If you bite each of the five fingers, they all hurt.” Amidst all the noise, she maintained her relationships with everyone. She was a clever woman. Her death was not expected so soon. I thought she would live another 20 years, but the hand of fate – a heart attack on a summer night – snatched her soul, along with a world of untold stories, from this world, leaving her lifeless body among her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to be buried with honour and respect.
Antama had no siblings. She had no living maternal or paternal aunts, uncles, or cousins, only a few distant cousins with whom she did not have close relationships. Her paternal cousins took her father’s inheritance. Her father had left hundreds of acres of land but her paternal relatives, who saw her as an only daughter with a husband, denied Antama her rightful share. Not long ago, my mother told me that my grandmother had said: “When my brothers died, my father was sick and bedridden. They arranged my marriage, and after a few days of staying at our own home, my father passed away. On the day of my father’s death, my cousins entered our courtyard and started taking our belongings one by one. They even emptied my father’s bookshelf.” After their lives were plundered by her cousins, my grandmother, her new husband, and her mother left that home forever.
She sometimes remembered that land and found people who could testify in court that the land belonged to Antama. After every complaint and court session, the cousins would pay her some money, but the court’s decision always ended in such a way that she never received any of the land. She had no fond memories of her relatives, so we hardly remember her sitting with any of them for tea. We were her relatives. She had enough children and grandchildren to be at peace. She was a clear example of the injustice women face at the hands of their male relatives. An entire village of men could not take care of two women. They took her father’s lands and books and placed her on a horse, sending her off to her husband’s home, as if that was a favour. What a heart she had. She never once shared her regrets, sorrows, or defeats with us, her grandchildren.
Now that she is gone and no longer among us, she has left behind a world of stories and countless things to ponder. She lived for 68 years. She is a clear example of a 68-year-old woman’s life in Afghanistan. In 68 years, a woman with 11 children, and 50 grandchildren cannot even secure a piece of her own land. A woman with that many children, as her daughter said, dies alone in a hospital; a woman with six daughters and many granddaughters who haven’t heard enough of her stories.. She loved to call. She frequently called my mother, my aunts, and her daughters-in-law. Her SIM card always had free minutes. When she called my mother, my mother would stay on the phone for hours until her mother’s words were finished. Sometimes my father’s patience would run out, and he would scold my mother, asking what they could possibly be talking about for so long.
She was our source of strength. She hadn’t wasted 68 years. Her back was bent, but in return, she had captured many hearts. What a blessed woman Antama was. She was illiterate, but she had a good understanding of life.
Haidari is a freelance writer.
