A thin curtain fluttered near the window, and the sound of the street outside barely reached inside.
On a worn-out bed, a young girl lay with her eyes closed, her breathing slow and tired.
Beside her, a small boy — no older than eight — held a hair dryer carefully, drying his sister’s long black hair.
His hands were tiny, but his heart… it carried the weight of a family.
Her name was Meera.
She was sixteen — once bright, full of dreams, and always the first to laugh.
But after their mother died, life turned into a test neither of them had studied for.
Their father remarried quickly. The new stepmother didn’t like Meera — she said the girl was “lazy,” “weak,” “too emotional.”
But no one saw that Meera had been skipping meals so her little brother, Arjun, could eat.
No one saw that she stayed up at night, sewing old clothes into something they could wear to school.
Then one day, Meera fainted at the factory where she worked part-time.
The doctor said she was exhausted and malnourished — her body couldn’t take it anymore.
While she lay sick at home, their stepmother complained loudly:
“I can’t take care of her. If she can’t work, she’s just a burden.”
Arjun heard every word.
He didn’t say anything — he just held his sister’s hand tighter.
The next morning, Meera tried to sit up and go back to work, but her legs trembled.
Arjun stopped her.
“Didi, you rest. I’ll take care of you.”
She smiled weakly. “You’re just a child, Arjun. You can’t.”
He looked at her with determination that didn’t fit his little face.
“Maybe I’m small… but I’m not useless.”
That day, he cleaned the room, made rice the way she liked it, and found an old hair dryer that barely worked.
He spent the whole evening drying her hair so she wouldn’t catch a cold.
His hands shook from tiredness, but he didn’t stop.
Meera opened her eyes, tears glistening as she watched him.
“Why are you doing this, Arjun?” she whispered.
He smiled — the kind of innocent, unshakable smile that breaks hearts and heals them at the same time.
“Because, Didi… you’re all I have. And one day, I’ll be strong enough so you never have to cry again.”
Years later, when Arjun became a nurse — the first in his village — he bought his sister a small house and placed that same old hair dryer on the table.
“You said I couldn’t,” he told her, grinning. “But your love made me believe I could.”
Moral:
Sometimes, angels don’t have wings — they have little hands that hold a hair dryer and hearts that never stop loving. 💛