She lets out the deep, horrible wails waiting just below the surface. These tears are always accumulating, intensifying inside her. She pushes them down over and over, a hundred times a day—every time she hears a child’s voice, or examines a patient’s small body—until that moment comes. It always happens when she least expects it, a moment when she’s doing nothing at all: rinsing her coffee mug, unlacing her shoes, combing her hair. And in that moment when she is unsuspecting, the tears finally rage uncontrollably, from someplace deep, deep inside her she barely recognizes.

Author: Shilpi Somaya Gowda