My uncle was feared like a storm. Power made him ruthless. But the night his wife died, I found him crumpled on the floor, clutching her shawl like a child. Something broke open that night. He retired. He began feeding stray cats, mending neighbors’ roofs, tutoring children, laughing with softness we never knew he had. Some power isn’t born; it melts into being. Benignity is for him: proof that even the hardest hearts can turn tender, that goodness can grow in unlikely soil.