Oh, just a body that happened to still be breathing.

The moola looked at her with disgust.

He asked her if she understood that she was damning herself to hell, that Allah would never forgive apostasy, that she would burn forever for this choice she was making.

Paruana’s voice was so weak, we could barely hear her.

But she said that she was not damned.

She said she was saved.

She said Jesus had forgiven her sins and given her eternal life.

She said she would be in paradise with him.

Uh the moola became angry.

He quoted Quran verses about the punishment for leaving Islam.

He talked about how Christians were misguided.

How they they worshiped three gods instead of one.

how they had corrupted the true message that had been given to them.

He said that Parana had been deceived by Satan, that she was under the influence of evil spirits.

Parana listened quietly.

When he finished, she spoke again.

Her voice was barely audible, but we all leaned in to hear.

or she said that she had read both the Quran and and the Bible.

She said she had thought carefully about both.

She said she believed Jesus was who he claimed to be, the son of God, the only way to salvation.

The mulla declared her hopeless.

He told my father that some people were too hardened in sin to be saved.

He said that if Parana would not repent, she should face the consequences of her choice.

He said my father would be justified in carrying out the punishment for apostasy.

Uh that he would be doing Allah’s work.

After the moola left, my father made an announcement to the family.

He said he had been patient.

He had given Parana many chances.

He had brought religious scholars to counsel her, but she remained stubborn in her apostasy.

Therefore, he would no longer give her even the small amounts of food he had been allowing.

From now on, only water.

She would be given water to drink, but no food at all.

She would waste away until she either repented or died.

He said this was merciful.

He said that in earlier times in truly Islamic societies, apostates were executed immediately.

But he was giving Parwana time, time to come to her senses, time to save herself.

If she died, it would be her own choice, not his doing.

But we all knew that was a lie.

He was killing her slowly, deliberately, cruy, and he was using religion to justify murder.

From that point on, Paruana received only water.

I could hear her getting weaker day by day.

Uh, the crying stopped.

The prayers became quieter.

Sometimes I would press my ear to the door and hear nothing and I would panic thinking she was already dead, but then I would hear a faint breath or a tiny movement and I would know she was still alive, barely, but alive.

I tried once to sneak food to her.

I saved some bread from my own meal and waited until the middle of the night when everyone was asleep.

I crept to the locked door and whispered Parana’s name.

I told her I had food.

I that I would try to slip it under the door, but the gap under the door was too small.

The bread would not fit through.

I tried to break it into smaller pieces.

Tried to push them through, but it was useless.

And then I heard footsteps.

Someone was coming.

I grabbed the bread and ran back to where I was supposed to be sleeping.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would burst.

I lay there pretending to be asleep, clutching the bread, terrified I had been caught.

No one came for me.

Whoever had been walking through the house had not seen me or had decided not to report me.

But I did not try again.

The risk was too great.

And even if I could get food to her, it would only prolong her suffering.

It would not save her.

I started having nightmares.

Every night I would dream about Parana.

Sometimes I would dream that I was locked in the room with her, starving alongside her.

Sometimes I would dream that I found her dead.

Sometimes I would dream that my father came for me next.

Uh that he discovered I was a Christian too and locked me away to die the same way.

I would wake up sweating and crying and I would have to bite my blankets to keep from making noise because showing grief for Peruana was forbidden.

Showing sympathy for her was weakness.

I had to pretend I did not care, that I agreed with my father’s decision, that I thought Parana deserved what was happening to her.

But at night, alone with my thoughts, I let myself feel everything, the grief, the horror, uh the rage, the helplessness, and I prayed.

I prayed desperately to Jesus, this God that Puana loved enough to die for.

I begged him to help her, to ease her pain, to take her quickly if she was going to die, so she would not have to suffer anymore.

And I prayed for myself, too, because watching my sister die was changing me.

I could not see her faith, her courage, her willingness to suffer for what she believed and remain unchanged.

Something was happening inside me.

Something was breaking and reforming.

I started reading the scripture portions that Paruana had hidden.

After my father found some of them, I had quickly taken the rest and hidden them in a new place, a crack in the courtyard wall that no one knew about.

At night when I could not sleep, I would take them out and read them by moonlight.

I read about Jesus healing people, forgiving people, loving people that everyone else rejected.

I read about him being crucified.

Uh about how he forgave even the people who were killing him.

I read about him rising from the dead, about how he appeared to his followers and told them not to be afraid.

And I read the verse that Parana had mentioned before, the one about how whoever loses their life for Jesus’s sake will find it.

I was watching my sister lose her life.

Was she finding something better? Was there really a paradise waiting for her? Was Jesus really real? I did not know, but I wanted to believe it because if it was not true, then Paruana was dying for nothing.

Her suffering was pointless.

Her courage was wasted and I could not accept that.

So I chose to believe.

Slowly, quietly, secretly, I gave my heart to Jesus.

I prayed in the darkness asking him to forgive me, to save me, to be my lord.

I told him I did not fully understand everything.

But I wanted to follow him the way Parana was following him.

I wanted to know the love she had found.

And when I prayed that prayer, Oai felt something shift inside me.

A peace that made no sense.

A presence that felt real even though I could not see it.

A love that wrapped around me like arms holding me.

I understood then why Puana could endure what she was enduring.

because she was not alone in that room.

Jesus was with her and now he was with me too.

But I could not tell anyone, especially not now with Parana dying for her faith.

If my father found out I was a Christian, too, he would kill me as well.

Maybe faster than he was killing Parana or maybe the same slow death.

Either way, I would die.

So I hid my faith even more carefully than Paruana had hidden hers.

I prayed in secret.

I read scripture in secret.

I believed in secret and I waited to see what would happen to my sister.

Six weeks after she was locked away, I realized I had not heard Parana’s voice in several days.

No praying, no crying, no movement, just silence.

I pressed my ear to the door every chance I got, listening desperately for any sign of life.

Sometimes I thought I could hear breathing very faint and shallow.

Sometimes I thought I heard nothing at all.

I wanted to scream for someone to open the door, to check on her, to help her, but I knew it would do no good.

My father would not open that door until he decided it was time.

And even if he did, what would he find? A girl so close to death that she was barely alive.

Two more days of silence passed.

Then my father finally unlocked the door.

I was not supposed to be nearby, but I had been hovering in the hallway, desperate for any information about Parana.

When my father opened the door, why saw inside the room for just a moment before he blocked my view.

Parana was lying on the floor.

She looked like a skeleton covered in skin, every bone visible.

Her hair had fallen out in clumps, leaving patches of bare scalp.

Her eyes were closed.

Her face was the color of ash.

She looked like she was already dead.

But then I saw her chest move, just barely, a tiny rise and fall.

She was still breathing, still alive, somehow still holding on.

My father knelt beside her.

I could not hear what he said, but I saw his mouth moving.

He was asking her again.

I knew, asking if she was ready to repent, giving her one more chance.

I could not hear her response, but I saw my father’s face harden.

I saw him stand up and walk out of the room.

I saw him lock the door again.

He looked at me standing in the hallway and told me to leave.

I asked him if Paruana was dying.

He said that was up to her.

He said she could choose life at any moment by renouncing her false faith.

When he said her death would be her own fault, not his.

I wanted to scream at him that he was wrong, that he was a murderer, that God would judge him for what he was doing.

But I said nothing.

I just looked at him with all the hatred I felt and then I walked away.

That night I knelt in the darkness and I prayed to Jesus with everything in me.

I told him that I could not watch Parana suffer anymore.

I begged him to take her home, to end her pain or to bring her to paradise where she would be safe and whole and free.

I told him that I believed now, that I was his, that I would follow him no matter what it costs.

But I said that if he was real, if he really loved Parana, then he needed to end this.

She had been faithful.

She had endured enough.

It was time to bring her home.

And I told him that when my sister died, I would tell her story.

I would make sure the world knew what she had suffered for her faith.

I would honor her memory.

I would not let her death be forgotten.

Four days later, Pwana died.

My father found her body in the morning.

He had gone to the room for his daily check to ask his daily question to give his daily opportunity for repentance that he knew would not be accepted.

But this time when he opened the door, Paruana did not move.

She did not respond.

She was gone.

He came out of the room and announced it to the household with no emotion in his voice.

He said that parwana was dead.

He said it the same way he might have announced that we were out of rice or that it was time for prayer.

Just a fact, nothing more.

My mother’s reaction was immediate and terrible.

She let out a sound I had never heard before.

Something between a scream and a whale.

something that came from the deepest place of pain inside her.

She collapsed to the floor and began sobbing.

Huge gasping sobs that shook her whole body.

The other wives tried to quiet her.

They told her to control herself, to accept Allah’s will, to remember that Parana had brought this on herself.

But my mother could not be quieted.

She screamed Paruana’s name over and over.

She tore at her clothes.

She beat her hands against the floor.

My father told her to stop.

He said there would be no mourning for an apostate.

He said Parana had chosen hell over paradise and no one should grieve for someone who had rejected Islam.

He said, “My mother’s display was shameful and she needed to control herself.

” Uh, but my mother did not stop.

She could not.

She had just lost her daughter, her firstborn child, the girl she had carried in her body and nursed at her breasts and raised with whatever love she had been able to give in that harsh household.

And she had watched that daughter die slowly over two months, starved to death by her own father.

And there was nothing she could have done to stop it.

So she wailed.

And my father could not make her stop.

Though he tried.

He shouted at her.

He threatened her.

He even struck her across the face.

But still she wailed.

Finally, he gave up and told the other wives to deal with her.

He said to prepare Parana’s body for burial.

He said it would be a simple burial with no ceremony.

He said she did not deserve Muslim burial rights since she had died as an apostate.

But they would put her in the ground today and be done with it.

I wanted to save Parana’s body.

I needed to see her one last time.

I needed to say goodbye.

Um, so when the women went to prepare her body, I followed them.

They let me into the room.

I think they pied me or maybe they just did not care enough to send me away.

Either way, I got to see my sister one last time.

She was lying on the floor where she had died.

Someone had closed her eyes.

She looked so small, so thin, like a child, not a 16-year-old girl.

Her body was just bones and skin.

Her face was sunken and hollow.

Her lips were cracked and dry.

I But there was something peaceful about her expression.

Her face was not twisted in pain or fear.

She looked almost serene, like she had finally found rest after a long struggle.

I knelt beside her body and I touched her hand.

It was cold and stiff.

Hard to believe that this thing I was touching had been my sister.

Warm and alive and laughing just months ago.

Hard to believe that we would never talk again, never share our mat, never whisper secrets in the darkness.

I wanted to cry, but the tears would not come.

I felt numb, empty, like part of me had died with her, and the rest was still walking around, not quite believing it was real.

I whispered to her even though I knew she could not hear me.

I told her I was sorry.

Sorry I could not save her.

Sorry I was too weak, too afraid, too powerless.

I told her that I loved her.

That she was the best sister anyone could have asked for.

That I would never forget her.

And I told her that I believed now too.

uh that I had given my life to Jesus, that I understood why she could not deny him.

I told her that I would follow him, that I would honor her memory by living for the God she had died for.

One of the other women told me it was time to leave.

They needed to wash the body and prepare it for burial.

Um, so I stood up and took one last look at my sister’s face.

I tried to memorize it to hold on to it, knowing this was the last time I would ever see her.

Then I left the room and I did not look back.

They buried Parana that afternoon in a small cemetery outside our compound.

It was a quick burial with almost no ceremony.

My father refused to let an imam perform the burial rights.

He said Paruana had rejected Islam and therefore did not deserve Islamic burial.

She would go into the ground like an animal, unmarked and unmorned.

Only family members attended.

My father, his wife, some of the older children.

We stood around the grave while my brothers lowered Paruana’s body into the earth.

Uh she was wrapped in a simple white cloth.

Nothing else, no coffin, no marker, just a body and cloth going into a hole in the ground.

My father said no prayers.

He made no speech.

He just watched as they covered her body with dirt and then he turned and walked away.

My mother tried to stay by the grave.

She wanted to sit there and mourn, but my father ordered her to come back to the compound.

He said there would be no lingering, no mourning, no remembering.

Parana was dead and that was the end of it.

Her name was not to be spoken in the house anymore.

So we walked back to the compound and life went on as if parana had never existed.

But my mother could not forget.

She could not move on.

She stopped eating entirely.

She stopped speaking to anyone.

She would sit in corners staring at nothing.

Tears running down her face.

At night, I would hear her crying, calling Parana’s name softly into her blanket.

My father was angry about this.

He said, “My mother was weak.

” He said she was putting her love for her daughter above her obedience to Allah.

He said her grief was inappropriate and shameful.

He beat her several times to try to make her stop, but the beatings did not work.

My mother had gone somewhere inside herself where his fists could not reach.

She was broken in a way that could not be fixed.

I tried to comfort her, but I did not know how.

I would sit with her sometimes and hold her hand.

Um, I would tell her that Paruana was at peace now, that she was not suffering anymore, that maybe she was in a better place, but my mother would just shake her head and cry harder.

I do not think she believed in any better place.

I think she thought Parana was just gone, dead and buried, and that was all.

And the thought of that, the thought of her daughter just being nothing now was too much to bear.

As for me, I mourned differently.

I mourned in silence and in secret.

I could not show my grief publicly because that would be disobeying my father.

So during the day, I went about my duties.

I cleaned and cooked and did what I was told.

I showed no emotion.

But at night, I let myself feel everything.

The loss, the pain, the anger at my father for what he had done, the anger at God for letting it happen, the confusion about why Paruana had to die when she was so good, so kind, so faithful.

I prayed a lot during those weeks.

desperate prayers, angry prayers, uh prayers demanding to know why.

Why did Jesus let Paruana suffer like that? Why did he not save her? Why did he not change my father’s heart or help her escape or do something, anything to prevent her death? I did not get answers to those prayers.

But slowly over time, I began to understand something.

Parana’s death was not a failure.

It was not Jesus abandoning her.

It was her completing her faith.

She had chosen to be faithful unto death and now she had received the crown of life.

Uh I remembered the scripture verses I had read about martyrs about how blessed uh are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake about how great is their reward in heaven.

Parana was a martyr.

She had died for her faith and according to what she believed according to what I now believed she was with Jesus in paradise.

That thought helped not enough to stop the pain but enough to give it meaning.

Parana had not died for nothing.

She had died for everything, for truth, for love and for Jesus.

And her death had accomplished something.

It had brought me to faith.

Watching her courage, seeing her refuse to deny Jesus even when it cost her everything had convinced me that Christianity was real, that Jesus was real, that this faith was worth dying for.

So in a way, Parana’s death had given me life, spiritual life, eternal life.

She had been faithful and her faithfulness had led me to Jesus.

I thought about what I should do now.

I was a Christian too if my father found out.

Uh I would die just like Parana had died.

Should I tell him? Should I openly declare my faith and accept whatever came? Part of me wanted to part of me wanted to honor Parana’s memory by being as brave as she had been by standing up for Jesus no matter what.

But another part of me knew that I was not ready for that.

I was 12 years old.

I was not as strong as Paruana had been.

I did not think I could endure what she had endured.

And dying now would not accomplish anything.

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