Questions with no Answers

People are full of questions, from the important ones to the useless ones. However, more times than not the questions that are needed to be asked are only asked in hindsight. Would our lives have changed if we asked these questions when we had the opportunity? Would it be a life lived better or worse? Most spend their lives asking themselves that question, but only few spend their lives trying to answer it, and one of those people is Amir in the novel Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Would his life be better if he and Baba got along when he was a child? Or if he knew Hassan was actually his step-brother, or even if Hassan knew Baba was his biological father?

“How could I have been so blind?” Amir had many questions for Baba and Hassan, but they were no longer there to answer them. He had missed all of the signs and clues, he had failed to find out the answers when he had the chance. If he had know the answers his whole life would certainly have been different, but would it have been better? Sure, he wouldn’t feel that mind numbing guilt but maybe that guilt made him a better writer. Because of all the missed chances at asking the questions, Amir and Hassan both lived most of their lives without really knowing each other. Even though Amir mistreated Hassan when they were children, it still made him feel guilty but he never knew why. When Amir found out that they were actually step-brothers, which brought an answer but more questions with it. Amir sought answers when he went to save Sohrab and bring him back to America. It may have righted a few wrongs but did Amir regain Hassan’s friendship? It was friendship Amir thought he lost, but it was really the friendship that never left him.

Much like his son Amir, Baba spent most of his life with a secret. It stayed with him until he died. It was a secret that was revealed to Amir, the secret that Baba was Hassan’s biological father. The father-son relationship that could have been between Baba and Hassan. Baba had felt that Hassan resembled him as a child; a boy that would stand up for himself. Baba was always so proud of Hassan. “He never missed any of Hassan’s birthdays...” and always got Hassan something special. Baba always treated Hassan like a son but never as his son. But Ali was the one who raised Hassan, who changed his diapers, the things that a father should do, things that Baba wanted to do but couldn’t. Ali may not have been Hassan’s biological father but he was his real father. Some questions were answered, other were forgotten in time.

After death, answers can only be assumed. Baba and Amir broke the “like father, like son” cliché. Two completely different people were somehow joined together by blood. Their relationship started out more distant than they both wanted but grew closer than they could have ever imagined. Amir always wanted to know why things were the way they were, but he never asked, he only wondered. Would Amir have asked Baba if they were closer? Would Amir have asked Baba if they were more alike, Amir would have gotten the courage to ask Baba? Questions that may not even have answers. As Amir gets older he and Baba grow closer. Amir spent most of his childhood trying to gain Baba’s love, but after waiting all of that time, when Amir finally felt that Baba loved him, was Amir truly happy? Possibly for awhile, until he finds out that “Baba had been a thief, a thief of the worst kind.” Amir wanted to know the answers to questions of all sorts. The questions all started the differently but ended being the same. Will Amir ever really know Baba? This question, can only be assumed.

Do you ever really know the answer to questions that you ask? Would everyone’s lives be better if questions were asked but if answers were never revealed? Were Baba and Amir truly father and son, was Hassan better off without Baba as his father, and did Amir really heal old wounds with bravery? There are so many questions to be asked, but so few of them to be answered.