CW: sexual assault

One of my sisters
shared a meme:
”If you’re happy to be alive
thank your father;
your mother probably wasn’t in the mood.”
Which is funny
if rape is funny
(which it isn’t).

But she’s a different generation
she’s from his first marriage
the marriage, he eventually told me
when he’d been diagnosed
and knew his days were numbered,
“She didn’t like to fuck.”

Dad died with four children by his side,
three from his first marriage,
crying as his body seized and gasped
for its last breath.
The next day was rough.
His oldest son was angry,
and his oldest daughters were shaken.
I’d never known 
the pain,
resentment,
feelings of being rejected
they’d all felt
until then.

So my sister shared a meme
and I immediately assumed
she didn’t realize
the implications
of the joke.
But then I thought back to dad
and the day after he died
and how, during his last year, he opened up
about the affairs.
And I wonder, what didn’t he say?
What if my sister understood 
the implications,
the hidden violence behind it all,
but shared it anyway?