when you sleep :: [malik]

"Let Me..."

"Zayn...? Will you play with me?"

"Of course," Zayn's grin is massive as he lifts the four-year-old girl into his lap. "What do you wanna play, Mia?"

"This," she replies, shoving a coloring book into his hands, her own little fingers gripping a few crayons. "Play t'is."

"Okay, okay," he grins. "What're we coloring, baby girl?"

"Umm..." and the toddler flips through the coloring book, comfortable in Zayn's lap. She finally lands on a picture of Princess Tiana, "T'is."

Zayn is smiling so big at this baby.

In Islam, family and friends are all supposed to be present when someone is approaching their death.

Zayn remembers when his grandfather died.

He remembers the funeral clearly. He can remember a lot of old men and women—some he knew, many he didn't—who all came to show their respects. He remembers how his grandfather's old house grew loud as more and more people came, as more and more people showed their respects.

In ways, it made him feel good. He was young, much younger when it happened, but he liked how his family and his grandfather's friends all shared their memories. He loved hearing them share stories of his grandfather as a young man, as a child. He felt closer to him, almost. It was funny, how those stories kept his spirit alive.

It was funny how he found comfort in his community.

Those words seemed to ebb his overwhelming sadness.

"That's what this is," his father had explained. "This communion—it's socialization. Socializing eases the suffering."

Zayn thought this was strictly an Islamic practice.

Apparently, it wasn't.

"Look at these pictures! Y'all remember when Nana used to braid our hair like this for church?"

"And everyone thought we were triplets!"

"Remember all those patterns she used to braid in our hair?"

"I used to want braids like y'all...had me looking like a damn girl."

"You are, so...?"

"I swear, I'ma ball you in a knot, Zhuri."

"Mama! You remember Taj used to beg her to do his hair!"

"Cryin' and shit..."

"Zhu! Quit cussin' so much."

"Sorry, mama."

"You always were the baby, TJ."

"Ash, if you don't quit—"

"You were so cute in those cornrows, Taj!"

"Had my shit looking clean, Mani."

"So country. We'd be taking pictures with tears in our eyes 'cause our braids were so tight!"

"I think...I think that's why I do hair now. I used to wanna braid like her," Imani nods, as she sits at a table with her siblings and Zayn looks around at family and friends all flipping through pictures and things in the kitchen of their grandmother's house.

Taj laughs between two cousins. "Remember you used to be cuttin' on all your doll's hair?"

"Nana used to buy me some to practice on," she grins. "I got the dolls and Zhuri got the books."