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Chicago Tribune, Illinois, September 7, 1913

My mum has six brothers. They all live in Pakistan- as does the rest of her family. I went there recently after ten years and saw them all. For the first time in my life, I believe I’ve seen true and undeniable love. All of my uncles are deeply in love with their wives, masha’Allah.

But one of my uncles in particular stood out to me. He is quiet and has a simple life; he lives in a modest home and has six children- four of whom are under the age of seven. They have goats and chickens in their courtyard, and there is constant hubbub. It took me time to realise his commitment to his wife because he is quiet and modest in that too. Slowly I realised that he never ever eats a meal without his wife. He will wait and wait and allow his food to become cold as she runs around and fusses over their children. His eldest daughter, Safiya, will often ask him to eat anyway but he refuses until his wife can eat with him because a meal is not enjoyable without her. He smiles and says ‘I’ve not eaten a roti without her for sixteen years and I don’t intend to start today’. Safiya rolls her eyes and brings her mum over then takes over whatever task her mum was doing.. but it’s evident that she has no problem doing this. The relationship her parents have is something she is very proud of and I know this because of how often she fondly spoke of it.

One night, she made me some chai over a small fire and we chatted until the early morning. She told me about her parents and how much her father values her mother. She was glowing with admiration and pride, and I couldn’t help but feel the same. Every morning before taking the children to school, he tells her mother she is as beautiful as a sparrow and every day she blushes and ushers him away- ‘jao!’ She says as she giggles. Their life is not easy though and Safiya explained to me that her mother can become silent and slow for days, unable to muster much joy. People talk about her in the village she says, but her father focuses only on his wife. In those times, he will ask his eldest children to look after the younger ones while he spends time alone with her. The two of them leave on his motorcycle, her arms wrapped tightly around him and her head resting gently on his shoulder. And then they come back and she slowly recovers.

Safiya told me many things; that she’d never ever heard her father raise his voice to her mother. That every Eid her father takes her shopping to pick a gift for her mother. That he agonises over it like it’s the first gift he’s ever gotten her. That her mother will call her husband at work every day at his lunch time, just to ensure he’d eaten. The list went on. She had a look of still contentment on her face the whole time she spoke of them. My heart surged and in my head I begged Allah to preserve and protect their love.

You know, I once read that the best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother. But it was so significant to see the impact first hand. My cousins will know what kind of love they deserve after seeing it in their parents. It does not have to be loud and showy. It doesn’t need to be littered with big gestures.. it can be as tender and as simple as wanting to eat every possible meal together.

epicusa

one-time-i-dreamt

I was on a Discord call with my buddy, and I said “BRB” and then I woke up. Words cannot describe the feeling I got when I realized what just happened.

shisasan

The Maria Laach monastery library

popcorn-slutt

Ok so my brother got this Marvel poster book and I thought it looked pretty cool so I decided to check it out

I was laughing at this one for hours

I love how in character these all are

what even is this book

thIS IS WHERE I LOST MY SHIT

unicornprincesschandler-deactiv

I AM MAKING INHUMAN NOISES

starrboned

L

4am-reflections

there’s this thing about getting older, life changes in the blink of an eye. i could have sworn we were still the love struck teenagers who believed their love could concur the earth. blinded by their feelings, convinced the power of their love could do anything. but looking at us now things have changed. we will never be those kids again. but i love who we are now. who we are becoming.

4am

propalitet

fathers casually dropping the craziest lore of their lives in the middle of a conversation

revolutionarytea

My brother and I trying to piece together our dad’s life based on random info he casually brings up once and then never mentions again

roomba-with-knives-taped-to-it

When my great grandpa was on his deathbed my grandpa (his son) was with him and says his last words were “I told them they shouldn’t have hanged that woman. Well by damn they’re paying now” and no one in my family knows what the fuck that means

bbcwhereareyou

My grandmother was harassing me about the dangers of online dating, and my grandpa was like, “Oh fer crying out loud, leave her alone. My parents met online, she’ll be fine.” Apparenly my great grandparents were both telegraph operators who would chat over the line in between messages and fell in love and my great grandma moved halfway across the country to marry a dude she met over the telegraph.

No one alive in the family had ever heard this story until like 70+ years later when I happened to start seeing a dude from OK Cupid.

incidentalcomics

The Shape of Ideas

tvandfilm

SUPERSTORE (2015-) Season Six, Episode 1 - “Essential”

reginaphalangephalange

#December

sofachips

love

marxistbarbie-deactivated202109

do you ever sit and think about your female ancestors and like how many of them endured forced marriages, sexual abuse, physical violence and complete deprivation of education and autonomy and suffered silently for literally centuries. going through pregnancies and child birth without modern medicine, having multiple children and watching most of them die before the age of five because that was just the way of life back then? and ultimately you are a product of their pain? i think about them a lot and then i think about how many women continue to share their reality in this current year

solarandluna

i think about this post a lot. there’s studies into how our ancestors traumas can be linked to our dna and that their symptoms of their disorders can be passed down after generations.

fillylegs

I was recently awarded an arts council grant to explore this concept through a collection of interconnected poems and I am still mentally preparing myself to get in touch with so many generations of inherited pain