Stay While They Weep

The house is quiet now, but your mind is still rehearsing the words you should have said. You watch the tears fall from someone you love, and your first instinct is to apologize for existing—for being the one who cannot fix it.

You shrink into the shadows, convinced your presence is just another weight they have to carry. But listen.

There is light within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world. That light is not dimmed by your silence.

It is not extinguished by your inability to stop the crying. You came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord.

You do not need to earn your place in this room by solving the pain. You are already here, and the light that lives in you is enough to hold the space where they are breaking.

The apology you are practicing is for a crime you did not commit. The only thing required of you tonight is to stay.

To let your light shine without fixing, without speaking, without moving. Just be the lamp that does not go out while they weep.