I no longer remember the day it stopped hurting like fire. Perhaps it didn't stop—perhaps it just turned into something duller, like the ache you carry in an old scar. But somewhere between folding the laundry and picking Amani up from school, I realised I had been trying to live without them—forgive without confession, breathe without air.
It began small. A quiet cup of tea at the table while Zawadi sat scrolling on her phone. She didn't speak. Neither did I. But we were in the same room, and neither of us left.
The silence, once so suffocating, had changed. It wasn't cold anymore—just cautious.
Amani, my sweet lastborn, had drawn me a picture of our house. The roof was crooked, and everyone in the family looked like stick figures… but we were all there. Even Yona. I stared at it for longer than I should have, tears stinging the corners of my eyes.
"Mummy, you're crying," he said.
"I'm just happy you remembered all of us," I replied, voice cracking.
But the truth was heavier. I wasn't sure I deserved to be in that picture.
Zawadi, once so bubbly, now wore defiance like perfume. She came home late, slammed doors, and barely touched her food. I recognised the rebellion—I'd once worn it too. But in her, it wasn't pride. It was pain. She was trying to wound me the way I had wounded her.
One afternoon, she dropped her plate in the sink with a clang. "Don't pretend this is normal," she said without looking at me.
"I'm not," I whispered.
She stared, waiting. "Then why are you acting like it's fine? Like you can just come back and—"
"I don't think it's fine," I interrupted. "And I'm not pretending. I just don't know what else to do but stay."
Her jaw clenched. "You should've stayed when Baba was alive."
And she left the room.
That night I didn't sleep. I sat at the kitchen table with Yona's old Bible open in front of me, though I barely understood the verses. The words blurred. I wrote in a notebook instead. Not for anyone—just myself.
Ø I failed him. I failed them. But I'm still here. I will still love them, even if it takes a lifetime to rebuild what I broke.
Zawadi found the notebook a few days later. I'd left it out by accident. She didn't say anything—but she didn't slam the door that night either.
We were stitching something—clumsy and uneven—but it was something. A patchwork.
Grace is never neat. It doesn't come with applause or big dramatic gestures. It comes in school lunches packed on time, in showing up to parent meetings, in standing at the gate waiting even when they say "you don't have to."
It comes in silence—honest, uncomfortable, and patient.
And maybe, if I held onto it long enough, it would be enough.