The Quiet Run Within

There comes a moment in life when the world’s noise finally quiets — not because it stops speaking, but because you stop listening.

And in that silence, something else begins to whisper — a voice you had long forgotten was yours.

From childhood, I carried a label — “You cannot run.”
It wasn’t cruel, just casual.
But those are the words that burrow deepest.
And so, through school and beyond, I stayed in my safe lanes — team events, relays, and track disciplines that never demanded a sprint. I excelled there, enough to earn medals and titles. But still, inside me, a quiet sentence sat untouched: You cannot run.

When I moved to the U.S., I began to meet myself again — not the version shaped by others’ expectations, but the one waiting beneath all those layers.
Every new experience peeled away something:
fear, hesitation, habit, and sometimes, even identity.
Like peeling an onion, the deeper I went, the more truth I found — tears included.

And somewhere in that journey, I began to run.
At forty-three, I started. Slowly, awkwardly, breathlessly.
At forty-four, I began to walk-run 5Ks.
And today, I ran a 12K — not as a runner in competition, but as a woman in conversation with her younger self.

This wasn’t a victory of distance.
It was a quiet rebellion against every label I had once accepted without question.
It was me telling myself: They cannot tell you who you are. You can.

When you stop listening to the outside voices,
you begin to hear your heartbeat sync with something truer.
You begin to understand that competition was never meant to be with the world — it was always meant to be with the self that said, I can’t.

I owe this awakening to three souls who hold me steady:

To my mother — whose absence created a void I now fill with purpose. Every mile I run feels like a conversation with her spirit. I run to honor her strength, to transform my solitude into gratitude.

To my husband — my constant, my quiet pillar. He walks and runs beside me, wordless yet unwavering, knowing when I need pace and when I need pause.

To my daughter — who has made me strong in ways she may never fully see. In loving her, I learned to love myself more fiercely, to model resilience not by perfection but by persistence.

Today, my father asked, half-worried and half-wondering,
“Why did you do this when you were unwell all week?”
I heard a concern laced with pride. Perhaps even he realized that this run was never about fitness; it was about listening.

When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t see the clock.
I saw my past self standing there — the one who had once believed she couldn’t — smiling quietly, stepping aside to let me through.

As Rumi said,

“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.”

I am learning to listen —
to the quiet voice that says, You can.
To the breath that reminds me, You are alive.
And to the rhythm of my feet that whispers,
You are becoming.

Microchimerism, in a poetic style

I was recently intrigued by reading about microchimerism. I started reading more out of curiosity about understanding fetal brain development during pregnancy, and landed on a much more intense concept of microchimerism. It is a two-way process, and the cells from the child have been found in the brain cells of the mother decades later, especially in the prefrontal cortex. Research says these cells positively impact reducing Alzheimer's and Dementia. 

About Microchimerism
Microchimerism is a phenomenon in which a small number of cells from one individual live within the body of another, most commonly observed between a mother and her child during pregnancy. These shared cells can remain for decades, silently residing in various organs, even the heart and brain. While science explores this as a biological curiosity, many see something more profound: a tangible connection that continues long after birth and beyond death. The following piece reflects on that connection—a poetic meditation on love, memory, and the quiet science of never truly being apart.

On one side, I wanted to continue to read more about this, but on the other side, this also woke up the poet in me to pen/type my emotions:

Cells of Her Love

They say that when I was inside her,
a piece of me took root in her —
tiny cells drifting like silent messengers,
nestling into the folds of her heart,
perhaps even finding their way to her mind.
Science calls it microchimerism.
But I call it something else —
a beginning of forever.

And now,
In this aching quiet after her passing,
I wonder if the reverse is true.
If her cells still live in me,
Not just in the way I look or speak,
But quietly, I turn outward,
thinking of others before myself —
a gesture that was always hers.

When I cook now, I feel her hands in mine.
The rhythm of stirring,
The grace of seasoning with love,
The silence in the steam —
She’s there.
Every recipe is a prayer,
Every aroma is a reunion.

She was my guide —
not just through life’s choices,
But through the murkier places:
Sorrow, grace, forgiveness.
And in losing her, I realized
I hadn’t just lost a mother.
I’d lost a companion of the soul,
a friend woven into my spirit.

But if her cells once carried my beginnings,
Perhaps mine now carries her continuation.
Perhaps, somewhere in my body,
She still whispers, still watches,
still stirs kindness into my actions,
and strength into my spine.

Microchimerism, they say.
But I believe in something deeper:
A biological poetry —
The science of never being truly alone.

She lives on —
not only in memory,
But in marrow, in mind,
In the small everyday gestures
where love makes itself known again.

Thanks to her, for getting me to write again.

Love Beyond Loss: A Mother's Presence in Every Moment

When someone we love leaves this world, the emptiness they leave behind is vast—a silence that stretches endlessly, a hollow space no time can fill. The world feels different as if the air itself has shifted, yet life moves forward, pulling us along even when we wish it would pause, just for a moment, to honor the weight of our grief.

I miss my mother in ways words can never hold. The absence of her voice, the warmth of her presence, and the simple comfort of knowing she was there are voids that nothing can replace. I search for her in the whisper of the wind, in the golden light of the morning sun, in the widespread white sheets of snow, and in the quiet moments when my heart aches for the softness of her love. But she is not lost to me. She lingers in the lessons she taught, in the love she poured into every corner of my soul.

Grief does not fade; it transforms. It becomes a quiet companion, a shadow that walks beside me, not to haunt me but to remind me of the depth of my love. I carry her with me in every laugh that echoes hers, in every phrase she once spoke, in how she called my name, and in the strength she instilled in me. She is there in the love I give, in the care I show, and in the life I continue to build.

She is not gone. She is woven into me, every breath, step, and moment I live. And though the ache of missing her never truly eases, I hold on to the love she left behind—a love so vast, so deep, that even death cannot take it away.

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until, at last, she hangs
like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!"

Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side,
and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
"There, she is gone!"
there are other eyes watching her coming
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,
"Here she comes!"

— Henry Van Dyke

Her love has not disappeared. It has simply set sail, reaching a place beyond my sight but never beyond my heart.