My mum never said the perfume was beautiful.

She didn’t open the box. Not straight away. She said she wanted to do it properly. Place it in front of the altar, take God’s blessings for the bottles, and only then open them.

That was last year, when I gave her Prem Rouge.

But the story starts forty years earlier, on a school trip to Manali. I was a kid with a bit of pocket money, wandering a flea market full of fake and imported goods. I bought a perfume for my mother. A rose fragrance. Nothing special, really. But she kept it for years, tucked away in her treasure chest.

I didn’t think much of that at the time.

Forty years later, I made a perfume of my own. Rose is one half of it. When I finally handed it to her, I expected her to say something. Tell me it was lovely. Tell me she was proud. Instead, she sprayed it on, absorbed the fragrance, and smiled. That was it. No words. She didn’t need them. I got what she gave.

It reminded me of another moment just a couple of years earlier, when she did the same thing without speaking.

I was recovering from my brain injury. Someone asked me once what the most healing moment had been. I told them about a summer afternoon in London. I was sitting in the garden, doing nothing. Hearing the birds, watching the trees and flowers, slowly getting a sense of familiarity back. My mum came from behind and put her hand on my shoulder. She held it there for just a bit longer than usual. No words were exchanged. But I got what she wanted to give.

Some people heal loudly. With advice, with plans, with answers. Others do it so quietly you almost miss it. A hand held a moment longer. A smile instead of praise. A box placed before an altar before it’s opened.

Here’s to the silent healers. Happy Mother’s Day.