Joy Is Not Betrayal of the Dead

The morning light hits your face and you feel a flicker of something warm, and immediately the guilt arrives. It whispers that to smile is to forget, that to feel okay is to betray the ones who are gone.

You stand in the kitchen, performing the routine of being alive while your heart feels like it is cheating on the dead. But listen — the light does not ask you to carry the darkness as a monument.

Jesus asked Peter, three times, 'Do you love me?' Not 'Do you remember your failure?' but 'Do you love me?' He was rebuilding a life on the ashes of a broken night. What you feel when the sun rises is not betrayal.

It is the same light that lived in them, now living in you. To let it shine is not to leave them behind.

It is to let them finish their work through your breath. The joy you fear is not the enemy of grief.

It is the proof that what they loved is still alive.