Rakhi wishes
Brothers usually send a forwarded image and a transfer. A written note on Raksha Bandhan is unusual enough from a brother that she will keep it, which is the whole argument for writing one.
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Continue writing opens that message in the card with the words already in it, so all that is left is to change a word and send it. The last message is the longest of the six, and it is the only one you have to copy across yourself.
Happy Raksha Bandhan, behen. The arrangement holds, whatever city either of us ends up in. You've been fighting my corner since long before I did anything to deserve it, and I've never properly said thank you for that. Hope this year is a good one.
Continue writing with message 1Happy Rakhi. Growing up you knew every stupid thing I did and told Mummy about none of it, and that's a debt I'm not going to finish repaying. Wishing you a steady year, an easier one than the last, and a very good day today.
Continue writing with message 2Happy Raksha Bandhan. There's nobody else who can tell me I'm being an idiot and have me actually listen. Thank you for doing it as often as necessary. Have a proper day today, eat too much, and ring me if anyone gives you trouble. Anyone.
Continue writing with message 3Happy Rakhi, behen. Thread tied, sweets owed, and the question of who Mummy actually favours left undecided for another year. You're still the only person on earth who has never once been impressed by me, and I'd hate for that to change.
Continue writing with message 4Happy Raksha Bandhan. Doing this over a phone isn't the same as sitting on the floor with the thali while you complained that I couldn't keep still for two minutes. Missing the whole business of it this year. Same arrangement, just from further away.
Continue writing with message 5Happy Raksha Bandhan. The thread is supposed to mean that I look after you, and I'll keep tying it, but you've been doing most of the looking after since we were children and getting very little credit for it. Thank you for that. Hope this year is an easy one, and hope we manage more than a phone call next time.
Invert the cliché if it is true. The Rakhi promise is a brother protecting a sister; in a lot of families the sister has done the protecting. Saying so is the single most affecting line a brother can put on a Rakhi card, and no forwarded image will ever contain it.
Be specific about the loyalty. Thank you for never telling Mummy is warmer and funnier than any general expression of a bond, because it names an actual thing she did, repeatedly, at cost to herself.
A brother who writes something on Rakhi is remembered for it. Very low bar, very high return.
Write her Rakhi cardIt arrives as a sealed envelope they open on their phone.