Finding solace from life’s cruelty inside my parents’ quiet shrine.
There’s a secret I carry, a quiet shame and my deepest comfort, hidden away from the world. When the burden of life becomes too much, I seek refuge in my parents’ shrine. They never truly lived for me to know them. My mother’s life ended birthing me, a trauma that left me with a limp and a constant ache in my hip. My father, unable to bear her loss, followed her just three months later. I grew up in my maternal grandparents' home, a home filled with a peculiar kind of grief. My Nani, though she raised me, never let me forget I was the reason her daughter was gone. Every fall, every pain from my disability, every quiet moment felt like an accusation. She held my father's memory in similar disdain, painting him as weak, a man who abandoned his child.
So, when the accusations echo too loudly, or the loneliness becomes unbearable, I go to their shrine. It’s a simple structure, a quiet corner dedicated to their memory. Here, in the hush of the incense and fading flowers, I finally feel unjudged. It’s where I imagine their presence, a mother’s gentle touch, a father’s protective warmth, that I never knew. I lie on the cool marble, sometimes just tracing the names etched there, and for those precious hours, the weight of being "the reason" lifts. Here, I am not disabled, not a burden, not the child who broke her family. I am simply their child, held in the silent embrace of two people who loved me enough to be here, even if only in spirit. This shrine is my only true home, my sanctuary from a world that blames me for merely existing.
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