Day 1 to day 10,000
Amma, Appa: draw the curtain from your wedding day to this evening. Slowly.
Day 1: two people, one borrowed scooter.
Day 10,000: still the first one awake, making the other's tea.
Same two people. The scooter went years ago. The habit of waiting for each other stayed.
Twenty-seven years · from the two of us you raised
Ten thousand days, one sky
Ten thousand stars tonight, one for ever
A few of the ten thousand
The days we were told about, and the ones we remember.
Day 1 · 1999
The wedding
Four hundred guests, one very nervous groom, and a bride who laughed through the pheras.
Day 640 · 2001
The first of us
Appa learned to fold a nappy in one night. Amma still describes the first attempt.
Day 5,480 · 2014
The house on 4th Cross
Built slowly, paid off slower, and full of everyone you love every Sunday.
Day 10,000 · today
Tea at six
Two cups, one newspaper, split down the middle without either of you asking.
From the steel trunk
Pegged up like Amma's saris on the terrace. We opened the trunk. Please don't be cross.
Same sky, ten thousand evenings
Sit for a minute. That is all you ever asked of us.
The sun sets on day ten thousand. You are still on the same bench, still saving each other the warm side.
One more promise
Amma, one thumb. Appa, the other. Hold together.
To keep choosing each other every morning, with tea, for ten thousand more days.
Renewed. Now scroll back up to the evening sky: there's a new star in it. 🌸