Joined by tragedy,building for a future

Patti Quigley and Susan Retik bumped along in a car on the dusty roads of Kabul, Afghanistan, knowing that just being in the war-ravaged place was a risky move.

But these two women -- whose husbands were killed in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 -- felt compelled to travel halfway around the world to meet other widows they support through the charity Beyond the 11th, which they founded in 2003.

The effort grew out of the overwhelming public support and sympathy that the women received after Patrick Quigley and David Retik died. They felt the need to help women in Afghanistan, many of whom had lost husbands during decades of war and who had few, if any, material and emotional comforts.

Quigley has a comfortable home in Wellesley; Retik's is in Needham. The women they had traveled to see lived in mud - brick, one-room houses.

But, in their widowhood, the Afghan women shared a strong bond with the two American women thousands of miles away in a land they had never seen.

They spent hours sharing their stories, and cried together until they had no tears left.

``From day one of the idea," Retik said, ``it wasn't just about helping financially; it was about making a connection. I definitely feel we did that on this trip."

Women, who traditionally have low status in Afghan society, can lose rights to their property and children when their husbands die, said Rick Perera , a spokesman for the aid organization CARE International, who accompanied Quigley and Retik.

The women lose earning power because they cannot work outside the home, and they're also isolated because tradition restricts their ability to move about in public without a male relative. And because there have been so many wars in Afghanistan's recent history, there are many widows.

Beyond the 11th supports three programs -- a poultry-raising cooperative operated by CARE; a human rights education and vocational training program offered by the US aid agency Women for Women International; and Arzu Rugs , which teaches women rug making, provides equipment, and pays them above-market rates for their work.

Quigley and Retik spent all of their weeklong visit in Kabul, where two of the three charities are based and where the third has a small program. There was too much risk of kidnapping or violence to travel farther.

As they watched through the windows of the beat-up, purposefully low-key car that drove them away from the airport, the women said they were struck by Afghanistan's stark contrasts:

New apartment complexes being built next to bullet-ridden, bombed-out buildings. Groups of turbaned old men with beards and long tunics -- ``biblical-looking," Retik said -- talking in a group until a cellphone ring punctuated the conversation. The ugliness of dirt roads and open sewers and the beauty of defiantly blooming rosebushes and the bright blue of a burkha. The circumstances of their own widowhood and that of the Afghan women. And the Afghan culture that had such an emphasis on giving and neighborliness, and yet was such a factor in holding them back.

``They had nothing and they wanted to give us their hair clips," Quigley said of the women they met. ``They had nothing and wanted to give us their necklaces.

``After all of the hardship that they've been through, all the ways they had to harden up, and the horrible things they've seen over the years, they're still a very giving people."

But, as Retik noted, the culture that places such an emphasis on giving and neighborliness is the same culture that compels the women to walk long distances, because riding bicycles like men and boys is taboo and taxicabs are too expensive. It's the same culture that forbids women from showing any part of their body in public and from working outside the home.

Without Beyond the 11th's financial support (the group has raised $325,000 ) , Perera said the program probably would not have been able to help nearly 2,500 women so far. But the visit by Quigley and Retik also was an important symbolic action.

``They have such a unique emotional connection to these women and they have such a moral authority to be a voice for Afghan women in the United States," Perera said. ``Their ability of raising the profile and being able to speak on behalf of these women is far bigger than their financial support, which is also a big thing."

Retik said one widow, Sahera , who participates in CARE's poultry-farming program, made a particular impression on her. Sahera's husband was killed during one of the country's wars, as were five of his six brothers. Sahera, who like many Afghans does not use a last name, lives with her children, parents-in-law, and widowed sister-in-law, Sadiqa, and her children.

During the visit, Quigley asked Sahera and Sadiqa if they had ever thought about remarrying. Both, in unison, said no. Doing so might make their material lives easier, but it also would take all of the household decisions -- how to spend money, whether the children would attend school -- out of their hands. Neither woman wanted to relinquish their hard-won autonomy, or their children's chances for an education.

The importance of education was a message emphasized by all of the widows Quigley and Retik met.

``That's what they want so desperately for their children, because most of them never had the opportunity themselves," Retik said.

The trip to Kabul had been in the back of the minds of the two Americans since the charity got off the ground three years ago, but it always seemed too dangerous, or too hectic at home.

In the end, Quigley and Retik found themselves getting ready for a 6,582-mile trip with less than three weeks to prepare.

Beth Murphy , a documentary filmmaker who has spent much of the past two years following the women's charitable efforts, told them she planned to go to Afghanistan on her own. In April, she sent them itineraries of her travel arrangements. The next day, Quigley and Retik had a heart-to-heart talk. ``You want to go, don't you?" Retik asked her friend.

The truth was, they both wanted to go. The next few weeks flashed by in a blur of vaccinations, packing, and the hardest part -- explaining the decision to their families.

The trip wasn't perilous just because they were two American women traveling to a war-ravaged country; it was because each was the sole surviving parent of their young children.

``I cried for two hours," said Lynn Retik , Susan's mother-in-law, after she learned about the journey. ``And then I was sort of over it. I just said, `This is what she has to do.' "

Even after learning more about the trip, Lynn Retik said she was never fully comfortable.

``If anything happened to her," she said, ``I don't know how we'd deal with it ourselves, let alone the children."

Chief among the family's concerns was how those children, ages 8, 6, and 4, would handle their mother's trip to a place most people associate with danger and death, a country so intertwined with the death of their father.

The night before Retik was to leave, a camera crew from the documentary filmed the family having dinner. Those fears were as present as the guests at the table.

``One of the kids said, `Are you going to die on this trip, Mommy?' It was right out there," Lynn Retik said.

Retik responded by telling them that no, she was not going to die, and explaining all the precautions they would take to stay safe. It helped, Lynn Retik said. But Dina , the youngest, still cried every night.

Lynn Retik said her opinion about the journey changed with one of the first e-mails Susan sent back home. ``I think I realized for the very first time exactly what she felt, and this connection with these women," she said.

``The Afghan women knew how Susan and Patti had lost their husbands. . . . To them this was more catastrophic, whereas they themselves felt that their country was at war and in war you expect to have people die.

``So these women think that Susan and Patti were doing something tremendous in coming and helping them. But I think Susan and Patti . . . connected on the loss that each had, and how it happened didn't matter."

Susan Retik said she met a woman whose husband had been killed and daughter had been blinded and disfigured by an American bomb. Retik was surprised by the woman's response to her loss. ``She basically said war exists, and is what had to happen" to rid the country of the Taliban regime, Retik said.

But that attitude is hard to accept, she said. ``The idea that as a result of Dave's death or Patrick's death or anyone's death on 9/11, that someone had to suffer, is really hard for me to swallow."

Stephanie V. Siek can be reached at ssiek@globe.com.