Borrowed Rain
I have been kept alive
by hands I did not know
names that brushed past me
like wind through a street of trees
There were days I was bark split open
illness nesting in my rings
grief sitting heavy in my branches
and still someone leaned a ladder
against me
without asking who I was
They never stayed long enough
to become memory with faces
only warmth
Their kindness
was rain that did not ask permission
soil that did not ask for proof
If I am still standing
if my roots have not given up
it is because strangers
chose to care
I do not know what kind of tree I am
some seasons I am bare
some years I bend too low
but I know this
I try to hold my branches open
for birds I may never see again
So I grow slowly
learning how to offer shade
how to stand beside another trunk
when the storm comes
and if someone rests against me
even for a moment
I hope they leave lighter
the way I once did
A reflection
I often wonder whether any of us truly stands on our own. We are, in so many ways, the sum of hands that reached out when we could no longer reach for ourselves. Living with chronic pain has taught me that resilience is rarely solitary. It is built in waiting rooms and hospital corridors, in conversations, in the unwavering presence of people who choose to stay, and in the unexpected kindness of strangers who ask for nothing in return.
This poem is a reminder that the care we receive does not end with us. It takes root. It changes the way we see suffering, the way we respond to another’s vulnerability, and sometimes, it shapes the work we are called to do. My journey into palliative care social work began with the communities that carried me through my own seasons of illness and taught me that dignity is often found not in being cured, but in not being left alone.
Every family I meet, every caregiver I sit beside, every patient whose story I am entrusted with is an opportunity to pass forward a little of the grace I have received. We cannot always take away pain. We cannot always change the course of illness. But we can become, however briefly, the borrowed rain that helps another endure the season they are in.
If there is one thing I have learnt, it is this: compassion does not diminish when it is shared. It multiplies. And perhaps that is what community is, an inheritance of kindness, passed from one life to another, until someone who was once held becomes someone who helps another stand.
Gokul K Gopikrishna
Community Social Officer, Pallium India
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