TOXIC BLOODLINES 1/4

BLEED

KIMBERLY

SEPTEMBER

I won't say that things went back to normal. I don't think it ever will.

My uncle's drinking worsened as the days passed since I returned from the hospital. He could barely walk some days, which was considered a good day for us. I started sleeping with my headphones on just so I could drown out his sobbing at night until he'd eventually fall asleep.

~~~

OCTOBER

We all chose to ignore it – the grief, but the cracks were too big to ignore. Aminah Shoshanna's absence was tangible, a black hole sucking the light out of everything and leaving us in a constant state of gray. By October, the tears had dried; now, all we felt was this thickness that sat in our chests.

I remember her funeral vividly. Sometimes, I still feel like I'm there...staring at her body wrapped in a white shroud surrounded by flowers...the same ones growing in our garden. Roses, lavenders, and these fucking marigolds that are taking over the flower bed. I couldn't stand seeing them anymore. One night I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut them all off. I uprooted the marigolds with bare hands and threw the blooms into the fireplace. I thought it would make me feel better... it didn't.

The dark cloud over my head grew larger until I could no longer see the shore. I was lost. I couldn't cry about what I felt because I wasn't sad... I was angry. I was mad at myself, I was angry at Uncle Ahmed, and I was angry at the world – why did it have to be her?

'God always has a plan.'

'There's always a reason.'

That's what people kept telling us because apparently, telling us that she died for some higher purpose would change the fact that she was MURDERED! They left her in the woods – probably to rot there if nobody found her!

Uncle Ahmed had completely shut down; I watched as the grief morphed him into someone I didn't recognize. His hair grew out, and his face was hidden under a thick beard. I could see the gray hairs around his temple. It was as if the trauma was draining the life out of him. It scared us, Aaron, especially. He had already lost one parent, and the second one was slipping away.

Despite what he said when he drank, I tried my best not to resent my uncle. This wasn't him; it was the grief. That's the lie I told myself. But the truth was that we were dealing with an unimaginable loss. Aunty Aminah didn't get sick; she wasn't involved in a car accident. Her death wasn't expected – that's what made it hard to heal. There was no handbook on how to grieve when someone you love was brutally murdered.

As the weeks went on, my childhood home became unrecognizable to me. The family photos on our walls started to vanish one by one. Uncle Ahmed was taking away everything that reminded him of her. I had to hide her incense box in my room, but somehow, he knew I had it. I didn't put up a fight when my uncle took it from me. He locked everything else away in the basement and took away the key. Seeing how empty my home was made me understand why Elenore's house looked the way it did.... the memories of what used to be were painful.

The 'ugly blue wall' in the lounge where the TV hung was the only thing he couldn't purge from his sight. Aunty Aminah always used to tell us this beautiful story about that ugly wall. They had just bought the house, and she and Uncle Ahmed had been going back and forth over what colors to paint the walls. Aunty Aminah returned home from work one day to find out Uncle Ahmed had painted the rooms royal blue as a surprise.