By Afsana Elanko
Welcome. This month I want to explore the theme of how we borrow from each other: the habits we pick up, or skills we learn and share with others. Being an educationalist, this constant connection of learning, education and improvement over time and adaptation to change always fascinates me. Being a doctor, I expand on this further and often look at how groups and individual members support each other. These connections are vital on a personal and societal level for growth and development. For example, writer’s groups provide the critical eye while providing a supportive and encouraging environment. When they work, they provide constructive ideas and suggestions to dramatically improve our writing, even providing the push through writer’s block, which can be very empowering.
Similarly, we have support groups for people who have had the same life experiences, which provides a deeper understanding of each other’s journey and shared experiences and can be a powerful way of problem solving. Many support groups allow us to borrow strength from each other for recovery and learning a new way of living. This may be by learning techniques for coping or finding solutions to obstacles we face. This borrowed strength for recovery can be a powerful tool, both for the person sharing the experience and the person benefiting from the experience, as nurturing is an important part of life.
I also like to think of how we borrow strength from our heroes, who come in all shapes and sizes. They can be family members, friends, acquaintances, celebrities or people from history. It doesn’t matter who they are, the important thing is the positive and lasting change they make in our lives. The connection they make with the current time and the meaningful change they make. It could be a fleeting moment that captures us and changes our day, or our outlook for the next month. The important thing is how it changes us on a personal level, allowing that positive transformation to enrich our lives.
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First, I’d like to share Victoria’s poem on the theme of giving strength to each other. I love how she expresses the different ways you can make someone feel uplifted by simple and fleeting moments, captivating the other person and making their day brighter.
I Greet You With A Big Smile
GREET PEOPLE WITH A SMILE THEY WILL SMILE BACK.
Say pleasant words, it will make them happy
and they will be excited.
Hello beautiful I like your outfit.
Wow! You are looking good,
always come out with a smile.
A kiss is good too, on the cheek, nice one.
Hello my sister or brother,
you don’t have to be related
for them to be happy with you
and bring out a smile.
Hello sugar, brings out smiles most of the time too.
I don’t allow my health situation to put me down,
you should always smile it is good for you.
Your good singing voice can make others happy
and encourage them to improve their voices.
If you tell people how you try
to exercise in difficult situations,
they will struggle to exercise too,
this is the encouragement you give them.
I also teach some people to cook African cuisine,
and they teach me their own native medicine too.
DO ME I DO YOU, GOD NO GO VEX, ha ha.
© Victoria Ajani, 2026
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Next, Zahan beautifully captures how we borrow strength from the people who are important in our lives thanks to a shared journey. I like the way she captures the sense of nostalgia in her writing, her deep and everlasting love of her maternal grandmother shining through.
The Strength Gifted By Grief
On April 6 2015, my grandmother, my Nani, a Bengali term for maternal grandmother, left us. They say life does not stop; it keeps moving forward, no matter how many storms we face. I am also moving – or perhaps just surviving. Monsoons have come and gone, winter sunshine still visits my window, and countless festivals have passed. Yet a part of me has been empty since then, dwelling between shock and heartbreak.
For years, my morning used to start with her good morning or with her handmade snacks, which she carried all the way walking to our home. We lived in the same city, same area, until I had to move to another place for a better school. Distance changed our routine, but not her affections.
Every day at nine pm, she’d call me, saying: “Good night, my Pakhi” – the Bengali translation for Bird. “Pray to Allah for a better tomorrow and have sweet dreams.” Conversations that felt ordinary at the time, but how my ears long to hear those words now; moments I often dream of time-traveling to relive.
I have always had exam anxiety; no matter how much I studied, my hands would still be shaking. But her words could calm me down. Filled with soft whispered blessings, stronger than my fear, I would then walk into the exam hall believing I could do it.
People say: ” Time heals the pain.” But in reality, we just learn to live with it. Slowly and quietly. All my life, I thought being strong meant hiding my tears, suppressing emotions every time it became heavy, and not seeking comfort because it made me seem weak. But grief has its own way of teaching us. I have learned that hiding emotions fades away who we are.
If we keep hiding everything under the rug, one day all the buried emotions will erupt, breaking us in a way that may be impossible to repair.
Now, when life throws stones, I pause, take a break, rephrase her once-whispered words softly, pray the way she preached and try to do good to others. Every time I choose my peace over my chaos, I realise she has never really left my side. She lives within me, in my prayers and in my kindness.
Maybe that’s what borrowing strength means: reminiscing about the pieces of emotion someone leaves behind.
© Zahan Ferdous, 2026
Connect with Zahan on LinkedIn: Zahan-Ferdous or Instagram: @zahan_mou
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This next poem from Remmyglad touches upon the theme of heroes coming in all shapes and sizes and how they help prop us up during times of need. It’s amazing how she captures in just a few words the strength and support she borrows from others and how it can change a life.
The Beauty Of Life From Borrowed Strength
“No Man is an Island”
Life is sweet in a Borrowed Strength.
I wouldn’t have survived my stroke if the services of Healthcare Professionals, Stroke Association and Brainwaves Performance are not available for me.
My weakness cannot define me. When I am weak, I will say to myself, I am strong.
A Life shared is an achievement.
Perseverance.
© Remmyglad Anaele, 2026
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In the following short story, Divyanshu takes us on a journey across hundreds of miles to highlight our inner strength, developed in childhood. This borrowed strength is powerful and cannot be denied or understated.
Still From Diu
In Diu, mornings began with the sound of waves and fishermen calling to one another before sunrise. The island was small, located on the western coast of India, where Portuguese churches stood beside Gujarati residents, and old forts faced the Arabian Sea. Life in the town flowed gently, without rush or pressure. Men returned from the sea with fresh fish carried in blue baskets, shopkeepers swept the floors of their tiny stores, and coconut trees moved gently in the wind.
Anshu grew up in this calm town.
As a child, he would sit near the harbour watching boats disappear into the horizon, wondering what existed beyond the island. It was peaceful, but peace alone could not satisfy his growing ambitions. He wanted success, education, and a life larger than the one he saw around him. So, in his early twenties, carrying his parents’ hopes along with a single suitcase, he left for London.
At first, the city felt alive in ways Diu never could. The underground trains, glowing skyscrapers, busy university campuses and endless movement fascinated him. Every street felt full of opportunities. But London demanded something in return. Days became filled with lectures, job hunting, part-time work, unpaid bills, rent deadlines and constant worries about visas and the future. Even with friends around him, a part of him felt disconnected.
One winter evening, exhausted after work, Anshu stood outside his apartment as cold rain covered the city. For the first time, he missed not just his family, but the feeling of home itself: the salty air of Diu, the distant sound of seagulls, familiar smiles in the local streets, and evenings where life moved without pressure.
Standing beneath the grey London sky, Anshu finally understood something he could not explain before. The strength that had carried him through the city was never truly his alone. It came from Diu.
And Diu quietly remained with him.
© Divyanshu Solanki, 2026
Connect with Divyanshu on Facebook: divyanshu.solanki.3323, X: DivyanshuSola16, Instagram: @divyanshussolanki and LinkedIn: divyanshu-solanki-917a82176
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Samantha captures beautifully the borrowed strength from her mother in the following poem and the image titled My Mother And Me and how this strength helped her to pick her life up again after a life-changing experience with health. She beautifully captures how her mother’s strength has helped build her own; something we can all relate to as, no doubt, we will have leaned on others at some point in our lives.
Strength
My strength comes from my mother.
She was the strength that held me up
and though she’s gone…I borrow her
strength to keep me from falling.
Falling down in to a pit of despair that
the first stroke tried to keep me there,
but her borrowed strength lifted me out
of that black hole, and let me dwell
in the light of a beautiful day and
wonderful night. My mother is the
strength of my life and though not with
me…her spirit and her love is always
here. It keeps me strong and living on…
through a second Stroke, which I
thought would end my life, but instead
my mother’s borrowed strength helped
me to survive. My mother the love of
my life.
© Samantha Sheeran, 2026
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Finally, I want to leave you with this delicate beautiful poem from Remmyglad about love.
A Short Poem Of Love
Love is patient and kind.
Love is eternal.
Be kind to others while you still have breath.
Be kind to the people you meet on your way up the ladder because you will meet them on your way down.
I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good or kindness that I can show to others, let me show it now. For I can never pass this way again.
Be happy to hope to the hopeless.
Never give up in doing good.
Never relent in showing kindness.
The reward is eternal.
God is Love.
© Remmyglad Anaele, 2026
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I invite you to submit work on the theme of borrowing from nature. It may be the colours of nature we reflect in our clothes, or nature’s patterns, or even just lazy restful days in the sun. So, until next month, with my last page as the Thursday Connectors editor!
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