We were at the embassy in Amman few months ago. When we ran into this very shabbily dressed young lady… I looked at her because the emotional reaction on my mother’s face (my mom is very good at not showing emotions) was very unusual. I looked at mom inquisitively when the girl hugged her… her name is Kristina… I did not have the chance to talk to her because another lady came and ushered us all inside…. The lady told us proudly that Kristina’s mother was her friend and she is a true martyr!

I could barely wait to get into the car to ask mom. She told me that, Maria was their friend; she died few years ago a miserable death. She fell in love with her husband when they were young, got married , gave up her life to come with him all the way to a place called Jordan. Mom said with a sigh, “Ya reit ma ijat” I wish she never came.

With time, her husband turned into an abusive sociopath! Who made her life a miserable hell… she developed an ovarian cancer after 2 daughters and many years of marriage. He did not want her to have an operation, she will not be able to have kids, and cancer ends with death anyway…what is the point? (I remembered an incident when I was younger. My parents had to go visit some “people”, where my dad had literally to beg the husband to allow him to perform an operation on his wife Maria)… Dad performed the operation, but Maria has lost her appetite for life… last few days of her life, her death bed was moved to the living room, while her room became the room of another wife. Her two bracelets (which were promised to Kristina and Salma) were taken from her hand as a wedding gift to the new bride….her two daughters Kristina and Salma were reduced from daughters to servants…The only cosolation in her last days was that all the foreign ladies that belonged to the same community in Amman stayed with her to help her die despite of the husband. Mom told me detail above detail of that heart breaking story… by the time she finished…we were both crying in the car! ( we kind of have this habbit, wecried together when we saw all about my mother, which is one of my most favorite movies in the world)

Something mom said will always stay with me “ I can not understand, how a human being is capable of mistreating someone else’s trust like this….It is the biggest sin of all, because you kill someon’s faith” Maria put her life in this man’s hands, because she trusted him…

Maria died… Alma and Kristina were never allowed to finish high school…until Salma got married to a decent human being, who brought sunshine to her heart… They live in between Amman and Europe now, she has a daughter who is called Maria. Salma managed to convince the father somehow to allow Kristina to come and live with them…and that is why she was in the embassy fixing her papers. Maybe luck decided to finally smile to that poor creature I saw…

Unfortunately our society does not punish sick individuals who are the protagonists for many several stories… he is still a respected pharmacist in his community… but what is truly sad is that this is the story of many women around the world…women who are decieved by their own trust.