Laughter Does Not Steal Your Grief

The mask is on. The coffee is hot.

You laughed at a joke ten minutes ago, and now the panic sets in: has the grief faded? Did you betray them by finding a moment of light?

No. The light inside you is not a thief; it does not steal your love to give you joy.

It holds both. There was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, spent everything on doctors, and grew worse.

Yet in the middle of that long suffering, she reached out and touched the hem of a garment. She did not have to stop hurting to be healed.

She carried the pain and the hope in the same trembling hand. Your laughter today is not a forgetting.

It is the light breathing through the cracks in the armor. It is proof that the grief has not consumed you entirely.

You can wear the mask of 'okay' while the truth weeps underneath, and the light sees both without judgment. The love you carry is too deep to be washed away by a single moment of relief.