There is a certain kind of silence that arrives before grief.
It comes when someone you love is still here,
but no longer strong.
It sits beside you like a room after someone has just left,
nothing’s moving,
but the air hasn’t forgotten them yet.
My granny is very weak now.
Her body has begun to move at a different pace than the world around it.
She is still breathing,
but the version of her that once filled the house with certainty
is slowly stepping away.
–
When she passes, the pain will not mean something went wrong.
It will mean that someone who taught my body how to feel safe
has stepped out of the room.
She shaped the way I learned what love looks like
when there is no choice.
How someone gets up even when the body wants to stay down.
How food appears on the table before anyone asks.
How children come first, always,
even when it costs her everything.
–
You can let the world take its course.
But love does not allow that distance.
Love asks you to step in,
to argue, to endure,
to carry someone else’s best interest
even when it is heavy,
even when it costs you rest, patience, or peace.
–
This pain I’m having is the cost of having been loved without conditions,
without negotiation,
without needing to explain myself.
–
That kind of love does not vanish with a body.
It dissolves into quieter things
into how I breathe when I’m tired,
into how I stay gentle when no one is watching,
into the invisible reflex to care.
Love like that doesn’t leave.
It changes address.
It used to live in her.
Now it lives in me.
