Sometimes I wear huge sweaters like my Amama (grandma)

The mix of itchy wool and polyester wraps around me

Her presence engulfs me as I sit on our rickety front porch

Sipping her famous masala chai, I reminisce

The flavors of the sweet cardamom and zesty ginger take me back to a place I’ve only been

in my head
In this place, I try to imagine what her life would have been

What battle scars she has been forced to carry
Why is strength always portrayed in destruction?

The weight of the sun must be heavy

But yet, every day, twice a day, God is able to carry its weight

Does that not take strength? Does that not take munificence?

I have learned strength is not only what you did but why you tried

This is why silence has become my new mother tongue 
There is strength is silence

There is strength in vulnerability

I fight fear when my hair is being braided and oiled in the laps of women

Women who have fought fear to survive

Fear I won’t ever have to experience because of their strength
I think of my Amama, cooking in the tiresome kitchen

Melted ghee making golden sizzling lakes

Her callused hands working a million miles a minute

What made her who she is?

Who forced her to grow up?

Was is the fact she had to walk hours in the blistering sun to get a single bucket of water for

her family?

Or maybe it was the fact she taught to hate her rich brown skin because of colonizing British

beauty that caged her mind and spirit
Behind her hard exterior there is mountains of pain

Pain she could never show

Pain she feels because the proclamation of being a woman was stolen from her
When she tells me these stories, I hear the throbbing dejection echo from her voice

But I admire her for it

Not only because she went through it, but because she lived to tell it

She is my only definition of valimai