Edhi is an embodiment of the Schuitema philosophy. He has shown that a single man can truly make a phenomenal difference against all odds if he operates from the Attention: I am Here to Give.

The Schuitema blog will carry excerpts from Edhi’s autobiography (A Mirror to the Blind – As Narrated to Tehmina Durrani). Judging by your response, we will continue to carry excerpts from Edhi’s remarkable story of struggle and profound insights to Life.

… My mother was feeling and looking weaker by the day. During the last four years, she had withered away to become a faint shadow of herself and she had relinquished her position of authority. She hardly talked to us anymore, only mumbled to herself. Sometimes she cried inconsolably, at other times she laughed about nothing. I knew that the condition was related to her separation from her first born; duty to circumstances her controlled the intensity of the conflict, now her frail spirit failed to cope with the truth.

During her illness, I was confronted with the amazing problem of transport, the ailing were provided nothing for mobility. The first time I had attempted to get an ambulance to take my mother to a hospital, I was told that there was only one in the entire city of Karachi, this belonged to the Red Cross and was not easily available. I had often taken her in a rickshaw. After putting her in and holding her tightly, I would jump in beside her and the noisy, reckless machine would transport us. Qualified help was also unavailable, which was the reason I had begun the nursing home. Although, the lady doctor had suggested and many girls offered, I had politely refused assistance for my mother.

A neighbour rushed to the dispensary to inform me of my mother’s collapse. The door was open, she had been sitting on the floor cleaning her utensils when some children saw her fall. By the time I reached her, she was gasping for breath, she had suffered a stroke that left her body paralysed. My father and brother were as upset as myself, but neither could give up their work, I took the responsibility of looking after her.

That I considered it my first duty to care for the woman who had borne me and loved me, was not important for my mother. Much as I explained that looking after her gave me happiness, she would reject it in an incoherent voice, “Pray that God should free me of this service you do for me. It breaks my pride.” I tried to pacify her, even scold her, but she always became inattentive and detached at such times. In the morning I fed her and changed her, gave her medication and injections, then remained with her until she settled, returning early from the dispensary to relieve my father and prepare the evening meal.

As early as the first few months of her illness, I realized that dependent women become more so with illness. For the poor it was a nightmare. Family members had neither time nor money to spare, sadly, an afflicted woman had nothing to give in return. Healthy people were too alive to become bonded to the life of the old and ailing. To expect more compassion from them was out of place, and yet my upbringing guided me to my mother’s bedside, so that soon, even for the dispensary work, I was contacted at home.

… my mother had lost her dignity. Paralysis is most humiliating of conditions. It renders the victim incapable of existing without becoming a heavy burden on another human being. Joking about the old times, I tried to make her comfortable with my actions, cleaning her face and hands with a soaped cloth, then with a damp one, “Remember, you washed me like this when I was ill?” as time passed, she became completely bedridden and could no longer be carried down to the bathroom. I brought a pail and tin tub to the room and carried her thin body to a low stool. Supporting her back with the wall to prevent her from falling, I would place two boxes at her sides and pour warm water over her body, soaping her and pouring more water. After drying her, dressing her, and putting her in to bed, I cleaned the flooded room, thankful at our simplicity and lack of furniture.

When she used the bed pan, I would wait outside the door, hopelessly trying to retain her privacy; she would turn her face away when I approached her bed again. Washing her was full of sadness, her shameful eyes exposed more than her body. I would make other attempts, “Do you not remember how many times you washed me? You are my child now, I am your mother.” Tears would roll down her cheeks when she heard that. Nothing I said made her accept the reversed condition.

That pride and self esteem are dependent on well being, over which one had no control, was a frightening revelation. It brought me face to face with the problems of both the family and the sick, so much more went into an illness than medicine.

In the meantime, mother had become skin and bones and was so light now, that when I carried her to the low stool for bathing, I wondered if she even breathed. The time came when she was too weak to sit on the stool, then I would only sponge her. When she needed a head wash, I gently pulled her high on the charpoi, let her thin strands of hair down, and lathered and rinsed them over the tin tub with water from the bucket.

At first, I had found it difficult to comb long hair, but soon got used to that; braiding it was another matter, I rolled it down, in every conceivable way, and yet it never looked right. When I cleaned the room she focused her eyes on me, following my every move. Her life had ended many years ago, I had watched her slowly fade away, more because of indignity than pain.

I would cradle her head in my arms and rock her gently saying, “Remember how you used to rock me to sleep when I was small?” My smile would fade when her eyes would fill. I loved her like a mother loves a child and mourned her loss before it came. One morning she had a brain haemorrhage and went into coma. Five days later she died.

We did not believe in dramatic events and carried her quietly on a charpoi to the graveyard. After she was lain to rest and covered with earth, I turned away, leaving my father and brother behind. There was no longer any reason to return home. I walked towards the dispensary.

It was over. She had gone. I could no longer contain the lump in my throat. I locked and bolted the windows and doors and cried bitterly. The past turned into heart ache, the little errands, the packets for charity, those cutting remarks at unshared money, the soft breath blown with her prayers came back. She had given me in abundance until the very end.

I recalled those moments spent by her bedside, at last allowing myself to acknowledge her torment at being my dependent. Her eyes always imploring me to return to work, never to stay. I had witnessed a battle between dignity and degradation. Dignity had lost. Even from that she left me an inheritance worth many fortunes. Without realization she gave me an opportunity to return some of my debt to her. Through herself, she took me into a world of misery, selfishness and ingratitude. She had been alone despite a loving husband and two sons, uncomfortable despite financial support.

As a child she taught me charity, now she taught me collective social welfare. She opened doors that allowed me to experience the numerous difficulties faced by the people. Its lessons were cruel, its reality worse. Her life, her illness and her loss were an education full of tests and examinations, the pain was practical, it was not an illusion, not a dream. As in any other subject, fighting reality requires knowledge and personal experience. I thought of how bewildered I had been with her condition, how helpless and fatigued I had become. How little I knew.

Driven by her example and experience, a passion to change the world was born. She had singed my heart with a burning desire to care for humanity the way I had done for her. In respect for charity she had, unknowingly, or perhaps knowingly, bequeathed me to it, from here there was only one way to go. The first night she spent in her grave, I dedicated my life to the service of mankind.