The night was thick and still when Leela sat by the window, the banyan tree casting long shadows across the room. Memories, like unwelcome guests, came flooding back without warning—her mother's last breath, Amit's trembling hands, the silent phone calls, the voices that never truly faded. It was a long night, one full of aching, loneliness, and the suffocating weight of all that trauma that had shaped her.But as dawn finally broke, painting the sky with soft golds and blues, something inside Leela shifted. She realized healing was not a triumphant victory, nor a sudden disappearance of pain. It was a quiet, steady choosing each day to move forward despite the scars—a commitment to living fully, even when shadows lingered.The banyan outside rustled gently in the morning breeze, its many roots tangled beneath the earth, strong and intertwined. Leela understood her trauma was like those roots—complex and deep—but so was her capacity to grow. She reached for Amit's hand, who had quietly joined her, and she felt a fragile hope that the future, while uncertain, held space for laughter, for love, and for peace.Together, they stood and stepped outside, ready to face whatever came next—no longer prisoners of the past, but survivors writing a new story beneath the same old banyan
