Three little girls — aged 10, 7, and 5 — used to come over to our home to play with the kids. Bright-eyed and full of innocence, they would bring with them a lightness, a laughter that only children can offer. I assumed they were Pakistani, Pashtun perhaps. I was wrong.

The eldest, Gulmakay, was wise beyond her years. Every time she entered our home, she would shake my hand, then kiss its back, pressing each of her eyes gently to my skin. This wasn’t just a greeting — it was reverence. It took me back to a time when I saw my mother and the elders of our family offering the same gesture to those they held in the highest esteem. In that moment, Gulmakay wasn’t just a child — she became a bridge between my past and present.

She always asked how I was, and then quickly turned to speak of the two women who shaped her world — her mother and her phupo (aunt). She spoke with deep admiration, yet there was always a hint of sadness. “My mother washed so many clothes today, her hands are bruised,” she once told me. I asked if they had a washing machine. “We do,” she said, “but my mother prefers to wash them by hand… we dirty them.”

She didn’t want to marry. “It’s no fun,” she would say candidly. “Mothers only work and get tired. Their hands get bruised.” Her words were painfully pure — an echo of every child who has seen too much, too soon.

In her mother’s absence, Gulmakay would praise her phupo, who cooked for them, shared........

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