Citizen Mom

For every flight of fancy, emotional entanglement, and success or failure, my friend Malika and I have always stood sentry for one another, sometimes with raised eyebrows, our concern only thinly veiled, but always, in the end, evangelical in our devotion. It hasn’t always been easy. When I learned she was heading to Iraq to report on the war in the spring of 2008, an opportunity she fought hard for, and one that ultimately came only months after she gave birth to her third child, I mulled the risks, hands-on-hips, my concern painfully obvious. It would take months before I would be able to applaud her valor or brag shamelessly to anyone who would listen. The risks were significant. New mothers weren’t supposed to travel to war zones. Were they?

We met four years ago in Atlanta, both budding journalists, both unabashedly idealistic. Our similarities were as striking as our differences. I’m Christian, African American. She is Muslim, born in Jordan to a British father and an Arab mother. Her story is an affecting one. Malika understood what it meant to grow up in a Middle Eastern kingdom during the 20th century, to immigrate to America alone as a teenager, unable to speak English, her only reference a TV Guide. I, on the other hand, am proud that I was ever able to navigate Charles de Gaulle Airport, alone. A gourmand, Malika grows fresh mint in her backyard, imports olive oil and believes the greatest thing you can do for someone is to cook them dinner. I can only cook three dishes without precise directions and a bit of hand-holding. And while the very thought of motherhood stutters me, it has invigorated her. With the birth of each of her children—ages 13 and nine months old—she has pursued one worthwhile dream after another, scuba diving off the coast of Florida being the least adventurous among them. She’s at her best when she’s trying new things. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before she was lured by one of the most dangerous places in the world.

While there are many differences between us, there are many things we share. We love to make too much of everything and believe as much in the scale of the gesture as its underlying intent. We’ve bonded over countless discussions on everything from how to cook Basmati rice to when I should consider motherhood (before or after I field-produced, sold an article or traveled hither and yon). “We’ve been through it all,” we used to say. But we hadn’t. We’d never sent the other into war.

On a Sunday in February, when I went to say goodbye—rice, chicken kabobs and mast khiyar in tow—I asked if she was ready to trade diapers and violin recitals for body armor and military checkpoints. She was leaving for Jordan in two days. Her answer was clear: The truth is not free. Someone must sacrifice something in pursuit of it. She wanted to be that “one.” Why shouldn’t she? If anyone understood the dangers of a society robbed of the truth, it was a mother. Who better to share the stories of Iraqi families than a mother so concerned with their struggles that she is willing to leave her own children behind?

I wanted to scream, “But we need you here! What will we do without you?”

I didn’t say this, of course. I offered assurances that her children wouldn’t have time to miss her, that every “noble” mother in the world would trade places with her if given the chance. Later though, I called another friend whose husband was a soldier and asked her how I might, in good conscience, send Malika into war. She reminded me that Malika had always indulged each of my interests with the same degree of excitement. “This is what friends do for one another.”

She was right. It was Malika who cooked panna cotta for my fiancé when she learned that I had tried and failed. She taught me never to make tea or desserts without fresh mint because “everyone deserves this bit of flourish.” And when I set off to write a “wise” book and the pro forma rejection letters poured in, it was Malika who insisted that the world needed to hear from me, that I was only ever as good as my greatest dream. She encouraged me to take risks in my writing, to offend as many as I needed to if it meant I was getting closer to the truth. Now that she was searching for her own truths, I needed to support her too.

It was only after she left for Iraq that I came to appreciate her journey. Motherhood is not an immediate disqualifier. And while it is easy to state your values, it is quite another to set out in defense of them. Was she scared? Of course. Was it difficult to leave her family and friends behind? Certainly. She appreciated the arguments of those who thought it was unsafe to travel to Iraq, but she believed that mothers who worked in dangerous regions and conditions made it possible for others to make the decision not to.

She never saw her trip as inspirational, even as she continued to file impressive reports on a range of topics that gave the war a renewed sense of urgency. Many of her pieces highlighted Iraqi women and each helped to put a new face on a conflict many had lost interest in. Neither of us has politicized the ongoing crisis, but we are committed to its moral imperatives: The right to order, an education, a safe home, and religious and political freedoms. None of these basic human rights are free. Someone’s friend must make a sacrifice in search of these liberties. Why not mine?

When she returned home, the toll of her experience weighed heavily. Now, when I sputter and stall in the face of my own goals, I am reminded of Malika’s trip. And I’m not the only one. From her 13-year-old daughter, to a friend of a friend, word spread quickly that sometimes the scale of your gesture is as important as your intentions, that it’s everyone’s responsibility to play a role in making the world a better place.

Kim Lute is a DuPont and Peabody Award-winning journalist at CNN in Atlanta and she is currently writing a memoir called “Too Soon for Flowers.”

~Kim Lute