Joy Is Not A Betrayal Of Love

The house is quiet now, and the laughter from earlier feels like a stone in your throat. You feel that every moment of relief is a betrayal of the one who can never laugh or eat again.

That the joy you tasted was stolen from their silence. But listen — the light does not ask you to starve your soul to prove your love.

There is a feast prepared where no one is forgotten, where the joy of one does not diminish the other. The love that holds you is greater than your guilt.

It is not threatened by your breath. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die — the connection remains unbroken by your survival.

To eat is not to forget. To laugh is not to abandon.

It is the light in you remembering that it cannot be extinguished by grief. Your joy is not a betrayal; it is the only thing that can honor what was lost.