“~And Still, We Grew~”
555 Words
Two years later, the house didn’t look the same.
The walls had color now.
The windows had curtains that Amma stitched herself.
The wooden gate that once stood weak and cracked had been replaced with a proper steel gate — tall, strong, locked with confidence.
Inside, there were fans spinning.
Bulbs glowing.
Beds in the corner for sleeping.
The kitchen had everything necessary — one pressure cooker, two good pans, a shelf full of clean utensils, and enough tea for anyone who dropped by.
This house wasn’t rich.
But it had everything that mattered — and nothing that made them feel less.
Amma had found a job.
That’s all the girls knew — and all they needed to know.
She left in the morning, came home tired but smiling.
She never complained.
She never asked for anything.
She only gave.
And every time someone asked how she was doing, she answered:
“Alhamdulillah. We're managing.”
Even when her back hurt.
Even when her eyes looked older than before.
Farah had started university.
She took a bus that drove for almost an hour every day.
In the mornings, she worked as a primary school teacher — her students called her "Miss Farah" with wide eyes and messy notebooks.
In the evenings, she taught tuitions at home, back-to-back sessions on math, science, and English — in the same room where once the fan was stolen, now filled with learning and light.
She never complained.
She just wrote in her diary late at night:
“Every class I teach is another brick in this house.”
Tayyba had finished her 12th somehow.
They couldn’t afford two university fees, so she put hers on hold — no tears, no drama.
She chose strength.
“I’ll skip a few years,” she said. “But I won’t stop.”
She worked at the same school as Farah — assisting in junior classes, helping students line up, checking homework.
In the afternoons, she taught Quran to neighborhood children. She had her own rhythm now.
Quiet. Strong. Steady.
Maryam had started Class 11.
The youngest — but the most determined.
She studied like it was a prayer.
Day. Night. With candles during load-shedding.
Her books marked with dreams, her handwriting sharper than ever.
Amma often looked at her and whispered,
“This one... she will fly.”
And Maryam wanted only one thing:
“To top. To make her proud.”
It took two years, but the house now breathed again. It was more than a roof.
It was a witness to survival.
People from the street often passed by and paused.
“How did only girls rebuild all this?”
“No man in the house... and still?”
“They did everything themselves?”
Yes.
They did.
Each fan was bought with a paycheck.
Each curtain stitched with borrowed thread.
Each tile cleaned with effort, not ease.
Each gate screw tightened by hands that once trembled.
They were no longer the family people pitied.
They were the story people admired.
Four women.
One bond.
One bruised past.
And a future still writing itself — day by day.
Together, they had solved each pain.
Faced each storm.
And they knew one thing now more than ever:
They had grown.
And they would grow more.
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