KEY POINTS:
I have quite a vivid memory of the year 1989, something was different about the world around me, something was different about my country, my Pakistan.
As a 9-year-old I did not quite understand the word democracy, I did not even understand what martial law was, but somehow
I knew that a long and dark regime had ended.
It was in the same year that my parents, avid readers, bought the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto, Daughter of the East.
One afternoon I remember flicking through the book only to turn to the glossy pages with pictures and portraits of the Bhutto family including those of Benazir Bhutto or BB as she later came to be known (the word means "lady" in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan). It was as though I were looking at the photo album of the royalfamily.
Despite her Harvard and Oxford education, there was something "real" about the first female Muslim prime minister of the world. BB held the same charisma that Kennedy and Diana had, she was the people's princess.
Today with misty eyes and heavy hearts, Pakistanis around the world bid her farewell and I am compelled to believe that the loss and grief is not that of Pakistanis alone. Benazir Bhutto was an icon of female leadership.
Years went by after that afternoon in 1989, BB got deposed and re-elected, my political and religious views developed and changed and my family migrated to New Zealand. I even developed a bit of a dislike for BB's political stance.
Nonetheless last year when a peer made a class presentation on an article written by renowned leadership author Nancy Adler, analysing BB's leadership, I felt proud. Strangely, it felt as though there was a ray of hope for a country buried under the debris of the Red Mosque siege, the suspension of the judiciary and numerous suicide bombings.
Here was a woman, ready to lead a people tired and exhausted. She was ready to show the world that there is a modern and moderate side to Pakistan - television images of effigies being set ablaze do not represent a nation that is 169 million strong.
I could disagree with her political views but I was compelled to respect the woman. Despite being the daughter of an equally charismatic father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she was always known as Benazir Bhutto, never identified as the daughter of Zulfiqar Bhutto but referred to as the brave woman who carried on the legacy of her father.
She was also the wife of Asif Ali Zardari, notorious as Mr 10 Per Cent, but BB's identity remained distinct - not once was she addressed as Mrs Asif Zardari.
Many people have already paid tribute to her and many will do so in the days to come. Many will talk about her dream to restore democracy to Pakistan, but to me her legacy will be her strength and sense of identity, the very traits that gave her that special charm.
Her legacy is the ability to inspire women to become independent and strong, to be daughters, mothers and wives but to seek their own identity.
To practise religion with pride as a form of liberation, not restraint. Her legacy is not to waver, not to be weak, to see through storms and be strong, to have a sense of purpose through the loss of those near and dear.
Ms Bhutto, you were a true leader, you inspired many, you broke stereotypes and you emancipated a nation.
What better way to describe the loss but in the words of William Shakespeare:
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
There was no other way for you to leave the world, but as a martyr ... truly a departure fit for another people's princess.
