The Weight of Silence: Growing Up in the Shadows of Poverty and Secrets

The Weight of Silence: Growing Up in the Shadows of Poverty and Secrets

My earliest memories are of cold apartments and the sound of my grandmother’s prayers, muffled and desperate in the next room. My mother worked herself to exhaustion, but she never spoke my father’s name—except once, when she told me he had another family. That silence shaped me, but so did the fierce love between three generations of women, determined to survive in a world that tried to forget us.