The Light Before The Memory Returns

The first three seconds of morning are a mercy. You wake up whole.

You wake up to a world where they are still here, breathing in the other room, making coffee, alive. Then the fourth second hits.

The memory crashes in like a wave, and the bed feels suddenly too large, too quiet, too heavy to bear. You have to learn the loss all over again before your feet even touch the floor.

But listen — the light that woke you in those three seconds of forgetting? It did not vanish when the memory returned.

It was not a lie. It was a glimpse of the truth that holds you even now.

There is light within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world. Even in this fresh grief.

Even on this first morning. The darkness has not overcome it.

You are not starting this day alone. You are starting it with the very same light that was there before the phone rang, before the silence fell.

The sun rises on the broken and the whole alike. It does not wait for you to be ready.

It simply arrives. And in its arrival, it says: I am here.

And you are still here. And that is enough for now.