Mouli, for your heart, especially on your birthday.

Your birthdays have carried more weight
than candles could ever hold.

The day the world calls your “special day”
is also the day your heart remembers
the one who once felt like home.

I cannot fully know what that feels like from inside you —
but I see the courage it takes
to meet that day year after year.

---

This page is not asking you to “move on.”
It is not here to make you cheerful,
or to dress your ache in bright colours.

It is here to say:
your grief makes sense.
Your silence makes sense.
Your way of carrying memory makes sense.

If some birthdays you travel to the ocean,
or sit alone with God and prayer,
or speak to no one —
every version of you is valid.

You don’t need to be unbroken to be beautiful.
You don’t have to glow to be loved.
You are allowed softness.

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And now, Mouli — twenty-six.

Year twenty-six does not need to be light to be good.
It only needs to be gentle with you.

Let this year arrive like the tide at Puri —
unhurried, salt-soft, breathing in and out.

If it brings you ease, welcome it.
If it arrives heavy, move slowly through it.
If it changes you, may it change you kindly.

You do not have to bloom loudly.
Quiet growth counts too.

---

Whether you return here every year,
or someday forget this page exists,
I simply wish softness for you.
In your pulse, in your prayers,
in every birthday yet to come.

My intention is simple:
to honour your journey
and the love you carry.

You owe me no reply, no closeness, no proof of healing.
You only owe yourself tenderness.