WHO GAVE YOU YOUR WORDS?

Who Gave You Your Words? ✒️✨

She was the one who showed me the value of silence before teaching me how to speak.

Some gifts arrive quietly, and those are often the ones we remember most. (The image was created by the author using Canva Pro.)

My mother is the one who gave me my words.

She didn’t teach me vocabulary, read me stories, or correct my grammar. She wasn’t a teacher or a writer, and she didn’t own any poetry books.

She taught me how to listen, and because of that, I found my words.

She was quiet. She didn’t fill rooms with her voice, but with her presence and her silence. Sometimes, what mattered most were the things she left unsaid.

I learned language from her, not the kind you find in a dictionary, but the kind that comes from people. It lives in pauses, in the space between sentences, and in the way someone looks at you and says nothing, but you still understand everything.

I remember sitting on the back steps of our home in Dhaka. The concrete was warm under my legs. The mango tree in the yard didn’t move at all for hours. There was no breeze, no birds, only silence.

My mother sat next to me in silence. She held a glass of water, and the condensation ran down the sides, dripping onto her saree. She let the drops fall and didn’t wipe them away.

We sat together for a long time. We didn’t talk or look at each other. We were just two women on the back step, waiting for the sun to set.

That was how she communicated: through silence, being there, and waiting.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was teaching me something I would remember forever. Words aren’t the only way to communicate. Sometimes, the most important things are shared in silence.

My mother always spoke in short sentences.

“Eat something.” “Sleep early.” “I am here.”

She said these three things every day. They were not poetic or profound, but they were honest. They made me feel safe.

She never said, “I love you.” She used different words. Instead, she would say, “I am here.” For me, that meant the same thing.

I think about those words now and how they shaped my writing. My style became simple and honest, with no extra words or decoration.

She taught me that words matter. You should not waste them. Save them for when they truly count.

My first winning article turned out to be about her. After years without a word, she finally spoke to me and said, “I am proud of you.”

I didn’t realize I was writing about her. I thought I was simply sharing my own story, about the daughter waiting on the back steps.

But I was writing about her. She gave me a gift without realizing it. She taught me how to hold onto silence until it becomes a story.

That moment changed everything. She didn’t say anything new, but she finally said what I had been waiting to hear my whole life.

Then I realized I had been writing just to hear those words. Every article, every poem, and every silence I turned into a story was really part of my conversation with her.

My mother is the one who gave me my words.

She didn’t give them to me in a library, a classroom, or a book.

She shared them with me on the back steps, in a glass of water, and in the way she looked at the sky before it rained.

She taught me that words are more than just sounds. They can be bridges, silences, and even the things we never say.

This is the gift she gave me, and it’s the voice I carry with me.

I still call her. Maybe not every day, but often enough.

I still listen to her quiet moments and wait for her words.

Every time I write, it feels like I’m writing to her.

Who gave you your words?

Name them. Let them know. Put it in writing.

Let’s find out where our voices come from.

🖤📚☕

Thank you for reading. ❤️ Your support means the world.

If my words have ever meant something to you and you want to support this quiet work, you can do that here.

Inviting some writers whose words have inspired, challenged, taught, or delighted us:

Azalea West, Saadpathan, and Her View.

I’m tagging Parvathi J, ShubhamAgrawal, Priyanshu Jha, Arpita Srivastava, Monika Mahadev, 🌸Preeti Pathak🌸, and Parul Bishnoi ⭑, and thank you all for this beautiful invitation to reflect. 🙏

This is part of the June writing challenge from the Writer’s Circle publication.

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