December

My grandmother's fingers trembled as she opened the video call from Toronto. December again—the season when her grandchildren finally returned, their careers and lives momentarily paused. She wore her best silk saree, the one she'd bought decades ago in Madras. "Sing for us," I requested, sitting cross-legged before my phone screen. Her voice emerged hesitant at first, then bloomed into a familiar raga. The Carnatic notes filled my apartment, threading through thousands of miles. My cousins gathered around my speaker, their coffee growing cold. In that moment, no currency mattered except this: the wealth of voices joined together, keeping something precious alive within us all.