This is how I was swept up in the rhythms of a mother's legacy

Mother Teresa's House wasn't on my to-see list when I visited Kolkata, the sprawling Indian city that never sleeps. En route, I took a taxi almost wider than the streets it squeezed down as the driver drummed the horn to clear the morning masses. The laneway leading to the missionary, though, was silent as night itself, a precursor to the peace I felt when I stepped over the threshold into a room where the tomb of the beloved Saint Mother Teresa lay. "Love one another as I have loved you (St John 15:12)" was engraved on her marble tombstone. I stayed a while, absorbing her spirit, watching nuns kneel in prayer as outside worshippers trickled in and out. Afterwards, I wandered the quiet courtyard as sisters performed daily chores, preparing food, offering compassion. Like a well-oiled merry-go-round, nuns wearing white tunics with blue stripes disappeared between bellowing curtains before reappearing as they served in Mother Teresa's memory.