Broken family
This is a guest post by M, an Ex-Muslim who is a molecular physicist based out of New England. She wrote this in reference to divisions as a result of religion within her family.
Two words that sweep under the rug
a marriage and the babies that followed.
A decades-long disagreement
about how to live in the world
how to dress and how to befriend,
how to love and how to die,
when to pray and to whom,
played-out in the lives of the son
and daughter.
Birthdays and dinners,
three hens and a rooster,
countless rabbits,
a series of dogs and cats,
a fish tank,
three hamsters and a lamb.
The treehouse that grandpa built,
the sandbox that mom built,
the creaky wooden front-door
through which the now dead
Egyptian relatives, last passed.
Mamasetto with her long grey hair and prayers,
Uncle Abdu with his bald head and perpetual smile,
Tant Suad with her all-encompassing hugs and tears.
What happens to the house of the broken family?
What happens to all the things that were and remain unspoken?
