This is my sister’s nature. But I want to tell her: In the next life, yes, we can both go wherever we please. In the next life, we will be free and safe and happy. We will grow under our parents’ gaze like small trees until we are strong women, able to decide our fates. And when our parents are old and frail, we will watch over them until they enter the bardo, and when they enter the bardo, we will light a million butter lamps so they can see the path through the in-between. And when they reach the shores of their fates, we will know that we have done the most important thing anyone can do for their beloved. We will have cared for their souls and then let them go. But that was not our path in this life.
From “We Measure the World with Our Bodies” by Tsering Yangzom Lama