Mercy in the Empty Chair

The stove clicks off. The steam rises.

And without thinking, your hands set two plates on the table. One for you.

One for the ghost that still lives in your muscle memory. You stand there in the silence of 4am, staring at that second empty chair, before the realization hits like a cold draft.

You reach out. You take the plate away.

You put it back in the cupboard. That small, quiet motion—taking the plate away—is not a surrender to the loss.

It is an act of mercy. It is the light acknowledging that you are still here, even when the habit says otherwise.

You do not have to eat alone in the dark. The One who walked out of the tomb sits with you in the silence, not as a guest you must entertain, but as the breath in your own chest.

The table is smaller tonight. But the love filling this room is larger than the empty chair.