so gentle

Grandmother's letters arrived in faded envelopes, her Tamil script flowing like the Kaveri River through Srirangam. Each word was painstaking, deliberate, infused with decades of longing. She taught me patience through pen strokes. Years later, scrolling PaybookClub with fellow diaspora members, I found others boiling tea the way she did—with cardamom, with intention. Their stories mirrored mine: scattered children, preserved traditions, gentle resistance against forgetting. We encouraged each other to write. To remember. To bridge continents with our careful, tender words.