Feeding the Light That Remains

The pot is still simmering. The steam rises for two, but the table holds only one chair.

You freeze with the ladle in your hand, caught in the muscle memory of a life that has changed while you weren't looking. It is a quiet violence, this moment when the habit of love outlasts the person it was made for.

But listen — the light does not scold you for the extra portion. It does not call your grief a failure to let go.

There is light within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world, even the kitchen at midnight where you stand alone. The second plate is not a mistake; it is the shape of your capacity to love, which remains intact even when the recipient is gone.

You are not cooking for an empty space. You are feeding the part of you that remembers how to care.

The meal becomes an offering, not to a ghost, but to the living light that stays when everyone else has left.