two weeks ago on A line subway train track, in Queens, a bangla deshi Mom died.
she was not suicidal. she was ill.
her young 9th grade son is in the hospital. he was in there before she died.
he has brain stroke at this young age.
she was going to see her son.
the father has been making very little money by working long hours.
the eldest son, 26, has been a school drop out, disrespectful towards his Mom and father, as he is a drug addict.
he has restraining order not to be around his parents’ place.
the day of the accident, either Mom’s burqah came in her feet and she fell on the track or she had a dizzy black out.
she cried for help and some by stander tried to help her, too but the sub way came on her. her head got cut off from her torso. she did not survive.
her youngest daughter - a 7th grader has been crying over loss of her mom unstop ably.
her father is in shock.
police came in and a case is going on to blame the bad eldest son for death of his mom.
today, a friend of this unfortunate stroked student was referred to me by a teacher. she said to me do you speak bangla. i said no. but i might be able to help a student from south asian back ground. she told me that this student is great but he is so impacted the tragedy that over took his friend’s family. i went to his class and got him out to speak to him and see if he is alright.
a very calm and intelligent young 15 years old teenager. he is Muslim by faith. i did not have the heart to simply say, Allah took your friend’s mom’s life. he was really upset over all this. so what i said to him was that he needs to pray and ask his parents to let him go see his friend when he is conscious again.
his parents had gone to console the father and younger sister , but that affected family has so much loss to itself, that no consolation can give them hope, for now.
it was difficult to hold back my own tears when i was hearing what he was telling me. - story of an indigent immigrant family.
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who can blame whome, after so much goes on in a family’s life?**
granted that there is fate and destiny, but how do you tell a teenager that it will be alright, when he knows that his friend’s family is so distraught and tragic?
how do we heal such a bruised family when its surviving members are traumatized by what happened?
what lessons do we take from this?
any thoughts?
Dushwari