I DO NOT COME FROM A BROKEN HOME

My parents were divorced when I was 5. And, to me, there was nothing worse. It didn’t help either, people always saying – children whose parents are no longer together come from broken homes. So, I carried that phrase, like a corrosive, inside me. Broken Home. And, on some days, I despised those who inflicted it on me. Why didn’t they just work things out? Isn’t that what everyone does? And even if they couldn’t, why didn’t they just stay together, because of us, ‘the children’? Isn’t that what everyone does?

But my mum only smiled, the quiet smile of someone walking the road others are judging. Then reached out and held me close, so we could cry together. It took me a long, long time to really understand, but she waited patiently, loved me unconditionally, till I did. It was she who taught me to say, I do not come from a Broken Home. It’s the people who wake up and walk past each other, sleep shoulder to shoulder, but never say a word to each other; who stay only because they are afraid of leaving, afraid of what other people would say, afraid of starting all over again at 40; the people who use their children as proxies for cloak-and-dagger wars, and let them grow up believing that what they look like to those watching is more important than who they really are inside.

Ah! Let me not do this. I’ve been judged too many times, felt too much fear, been a coward too many times in my own life, to stand up here and judge you too. So, yes, it is true; staying together regardless demands its own sort of strength. But, Life may happen to you that way. Yes. It may bring you up against things you can only get past by digging deep. And if it does, you will discover this Truth; that being true to yourself, as critical as it is to fulfilling your destiny, will threaten all but the strongest relationships in your life.

But, if it happens, do not be afraid; True Love WILL survive the journeys you MUST make. Ah! How did the poet, Gibran, put it? ‘There must be spaces in our togetherness’. Yes. Know this, there is a lot more to being family than coming back to the same house every single night. And, let me tell you, if you have a father who will not miss a day – the school concert, your inter-house sports, the middle of the night when you wake up afraid – of your life; and a mother who smiles, without a single trace of bitterness, and tells you Love can conquer time and space; if you have a sister who still looks up, with that half smile of hers, when she senses you need picking up; and brothers who will break their backs to shoulder your dreams; then – as mum always said – you have all the family you need.

So, please, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re doing me a favour just by staying. Honestly, I am afraid of neither the darkness nor the silence; what I truly fear is to live a lie. So, hear me out. When you find Love, be grateful for it. Appreciate those who give it, for it is the only way to pay them back. Don’t love with cheesy smiles and meaningless rhetoric; show up and be there. For, no matter how well or how long we spin this thing, it is actually not real if we’re dying inside. Yes, my friend, there is no family picture hanging on my wall. But, trust me – there is nothing dysfunctional about where I’m from.