Still Standing, Unapologetically
She didn’t become calm because life was kind to her. She became calm because life left her no other option. She lost her father to kidney failure, her mother in a train accident, and her brother to TB. These losses didn’t arrive with support systems or gentle landings. They came with responsibility, isolation, and the constant pressure to keep functioning. Grief, for her, was not something she could afford to perform. It existed alongside survival. There were no rituals, not out of rebellion, but because life demanded practicality over symbolism. She understood death as a transition, not a ceremony. The people she loved did not need proof of her devotion. Then came a marriage that turned abusive over time. Fourteen years of erosion, followed by the hardest decision she ever made — to leave. She didn’t walk out alone. She walked out with her son, who was barely five years old then, carrying the weight of protecting not just herself, but a child who depended on her for safety, stabi...