My grandmother raised me in Pokhara, Nepal. She was not famous. She never held a title, never had her name printed anywhere, never gave a speech that anyone recorded. But she was, without question, the most important person in my early life, and I want to set down here what I remember of her, plainly and honestly, before more time passes and the details soften into something less exact.

Her name was Tulsi Poudel. She lived most of her life in Pokhara, a city in the hills of Nepal known for its lake and its view of the Annapurna mountains. She raised me from when I was very young. My own parents were often occupied with work, and it was my grandmother who was there in the mornings, in the evenings, and in all the ordinary hours in between.

I still remember the sound of her in the kitchen before sunrise, the particular rhythm of her hands, the smell of ghee and spices that meant the day had properly begun. She had a specific way of calling my name from the next room, not loud, just certain, the kind of voice that assumed I would come. I always did.

Her hands were rough from decades of work, but they were gentle in a way that never had to try to be gentle. When I was sick as a boy, she would sit beside me for as long as it took, not checking the clock, not treating the time as something to get through. I did not have language for it then, but I understand now that this was a kind of devotion most people go their whole lives without receiving.

She was not a soft woman in the way people sometimes imagine grandmothers to be. She was practical. She believed in routine, in doing things properly, in not wasting food or time or words. But underneath that discipline was a deep and steady warmth. I felt it most in small things: the way she made sure I ate before she did, the way she remembered which vegetables I disliked and quietly left them out of my plate without ever making it a discussion, the way she would sit with me in the evening and ask about my day, actually waiting for the answer instead of moving on to the next thing.

She had a way of making a room feel less empty just by being in it. I did not understand, when I was young, how rare that quality is in a person. I understand it now, and I have spent years since trying to learn how to offer that same feeling to other people, in my own small way.

Much of what I know about care, in the fullest sense of that word, I learned first from her, long before I had any idea that I would end up working in a care home in England, looking after people at the end of their lives. She never called what she did for me 'care work.' She would not have used that phrase. To her it was simply what you did for family. But looking back, I recognise now that she was teaching me something specific: that attention is a form of love, that showing up consistently matters more than grand gestures, and that dignity is protected in small, unglamorous moments far more often than in large ones.

I left Nepal for England in February 2022. I remember the weight of that decision, and I remember that leaving her was the hardest part of it. On the morning I left, she did not cry in front of me. She packed food for my journey that I did not need and would not finish, because that was how she showed worry, through her hands rather than her words. We both understood, without saying it directly, that there was a real chance we would not see each other again. I told myself I would go back to visit as soon as I was settled, as soon as I had saved enough, as soon as the timing was right.

The timing was never right. She passed away while I was still in England, still working toward that return visit that kept getting pushed further out. I did not get to sit with her at the end. I did not get to say goodbye in person. I found out over the phone, standing in a country that still did not feel like mine yet, thousands of miles from the kitchen where I had spent most of my childhood. This is, without exaggeration, one of the great regrets of my life, and I do not expect that regret to ever fully soften.

What I have instead is memory, and the way her influence shows up in how I live now. When I sit with an elderly resident at work, at the end of a long shift, when there is nothing left to do but simply be present with them, I think of her. When I am tempted to rush through a task rather than do it properly, I think of her disapproval, even now, even from this distance. When I remember to ask someone how their day actually was, and to wait for the real answer, that habit traces back to her kitchen table in Pokhara.

I do not think my grandmother would have described her own life as extraordinary. She would likely have found the idea faintly amusing, or even a bit embarrassing. She raised a grandson, kept a household, fed people properly, and expected the same care and effort from those around her that she gave herself. By the standards of history, this is an ordinary life. But I have come to believe that ordinary lives, examined closely enough, are rarely ordinary at all. They are simply undocumented.

This is my attempt to document a small part of hers, and to say, formally and in writing, what I was not able to say to her in person: that she shaped who I became, that her way of caring for people became the template for how I care for people now, professionally and personally, and that not a single shift goes by, in the care home where I now work in England, where I do not carry some piece of what she taught me.

I write this not because her story needs to be dramatic to matter, but because I believe, as she did in her own quiet way, that showing up for people, consistently and without fanfare, is one of the most important things a person can do with their life. She did that for me for as long as I knew her. I hope, in my own work now, to do the same for the people in my care.

Her name was Tulsi Poudel. I did not want to write this without saying that plainly, at least once.

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