In its essence, this shows my growth and how far I've home. This is my starting point for many pieces yet to come, showing my connecting to my family and culture. I want to continue to add onto this, create more engaging titles, find pictures, etc. But for now, enjoy!
A Mother Torn Between Two Worlds (my mom)
I pour tea in the mornings,one cup for myself,one for the memory of my mother in India.She used to sit by the window,telling me stories of gods and rebels,of women who carved their futures from stone.I tell my daughter those same stories,but they sound different in English—smaller, diluted, missing the flavor of home.I love her in this country I still don’t belong to,and I miss my mother in the country I no longer live in.Love stretches between us like a river,the current pulling both ways.
Immigrant Mother to American-born child (my mom to me)
I hold you in my arms,wrapped in blankets bought at the department store,colors I didn’t know how to name in English.Your cries sound different than mine once did—more free, less careful.I whisper lullabies in a language you don’t dream in.You laugh, unknowing, when I mispronounce "school supplies"or say "the Google" instead of just "Google."I love you with the weight of translation,between the life I left and the life I chose for you.Sometimes I wonder if you understand—how I gave up my first homeland so you could find yours.
American-Born Child to Immigrant Mother (me to my mom)
You ask me why I don’t call enough,why I eat alone in my room,why my answers are short and my patience shorter.I want to tell you—I am trying to be the person you crossed oceans for,but it’s hard when I’m still learning who that is.I hear your love in the way you fold my clothes,your silence when I come home late,your insistence on feeding me even when you’re tired.I hope you know I love you too—not in the way I say it,but in the way I carry the strength you gave me,every single day.
Daughter in America to Mother in India (my mom to grandma)
The phone rings between us,a thread stretched too thin across oceans.I send pictures of my apartment,the sunlight you will never see streaming through the window.Your voice is smaller now,fragile like the glass bangles you packed for me when I left.“Are you eating properly?”“I miss you, Amma.”Love fills the static—a language we never had to say out loud before.I wear the sweater you knitted last winter,your hands in every stitch,your love in every unraveling thread.
Immigrant Grandmother to Granddaughter in America (my grandma to me)
I write letters in careful, sloping Hindi,knowing your eyes stumble over the script.Your mother translates for you,her voice rising and falling over words I wrote with my handsweathered by the fields and the kitchen stove.I love you in ways the pen cannot capture—in the sweets I sent last Diwali,in the stories I told your mother long before you were born.You live in a world I don’t understand.But when I hear you call me "Nani" over the phone,the distance doesn’t matter.
Granddaughter to Grandmother in India (me to my grandma)
I carry pieces of you in my skin—your cheekbones,your sharpness when anger bubbles to the surface,your laughter that shakes the walls.When I visit, you hold my face between your handsas if I might disappear.You tell me stories of the life you dreamed for yourself—the one I live now, unknowingly.I wonder if I am enough of a returnfor the love you poured into this family.Your hands are smaller now,but they still hold the weight of the world.
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