You Did Not Miss The Light

The mask is on. You are smiling at the coffee machine, nodding at the desk, performing the rhythm of a morning that feels ordinary to everyone else.

But inside, you are replaying the exact second your eyes fluttered shut. You are terrified that in that blink, you missed the precise moment their soul left their body.

That you were absent for the crossing. That you failed the final watch.

But the light does not operate by the clock you are staring at. It was there before your eyelids dropped and it was there after they opened.

You did not miss it. The love that holds you both is not a split-second event that happens only when you are looking.

It is the ground you are standing on right now. What you bring forth from that grief will save you; what you bury will only deepen the dark.

The mask can come off here. You are not alone in the missing.

You are held in the remembering.