“You used to sit like this and tell me stories about my great-great-grandmother, the one who killed scorpions with her bare heels and slit the throats of the goats on Eid. You and Teta Badra before you and Teta's mother before her—my great-grandmother Wafaa, daughter of the scorpion-killer—you were the bearers of bravery in our family. You were the one who fought to save the neighborhood I'm now sneaking into to paint each night. But you failed to realize that America has only ever deemed certain heritages worth preserving.” WomenFamilyStrengthBraveryHeritage Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“This was a back that had carried the pain of others until it had become impossible for her bones to unbend themselves, like certain saplings will become permanently twisted under the force of windstorms. I thought of Hawa, whether it was this slow bending she had tried to escape with her linen wings, and whether there was any mercy in the world for those who decline to carry the burdens they are assigned to carry. My mother's back and mine were made from the same mold. Our spines were fashioned for bearing and bending and bowing and burying. Our backs had been honed over generations for the thankless labor of woman. They had never been made for wings.” PainSufferingGriefFamilyGenerational Trauma Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“Before you died, I learned about death from Jiddo, whom I was never close with but whose death taught me that someday even our family will be gone. After that I held each of your hugs just a second longer, even when I would have rather been doing something else, because someday you'll be gone and I would wish I could go back to those moments. But now you are gone, and your absence hurts too much for me to think about those hugs, those games, those afternoons watering your plants. It's been five years, and time hasn't healed any wounds. You are all I think about some days, and yet I can't bear to remember the way things used to be.” DeathLossGriefFamily Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night