Joy Is Not A Betrayal Of Grief

The house is quiet now, and the laughter that saved you an hour ago has turned into a new kind of silence. You feel guilty because the joy made you forget the sound of their voice, as if happiness is a betrayal of the grief you swore to keep.

But listen — the light does not demand that you freeze your pain in amber to prove you loved them. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off, and before the apology could even be formed, he ran.

He did not wait for the perfect speech. He did not require the right amount of sorrow.

He ran. The light that lives in you is not afraid of your laughter.

It knows that joy and grief can sit in the same room without cancelling each other out. You are not forgetting them by living.

You are carrying them forward into the next breath. The love remains, even when the memory shifts.