The day they lowered my husband into the ground, there were more empty chairs than people and more birds than cars in the parking lot.

It was a small brick chapel just off a two–lane road outside Columbus, Ohio, the kind of place where the American flag at the cemetery gate had faded from too many Midwest winters. The wind cut straight through my black coat as if November itself was in a hurry.

Only three of us were there for George Holloway’s funeral: the pastor, the funeral director, and me.

The director kept glancing at the door, then at the row of unused tissues, then back at me. He cleared his throat once, then again.

“Would you like us to wait a few more minutes, Mrs. Holloway?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“No,” I said. “Start. George would have hated a delay.”

Punctuality was practically his religion. Pills at eight, nightly news at six, slippers lined up beside the recliner before bed. A man of habit, a man of quiet pride—and now a man laid to rest without a single child or grandchild in sight.

I sat in the front row. Five chairs. One occupied.

The pastor read scripture in that soft, practiced tone pastors everywhere use. The flowers were too bright, the casket too polished. I could almost hear what George would have said if he’d seen this: “All this for a man who never liked lilies?” Then he would’ve looked around, frowning.

“Where are the kids, May?”

Where were they?

Our son, Peter, had texted that morning.

Sorry, Mom. Something came up. Can’t make it.

No explanation. No call. No “How are you holding up?” I pictured him on some green Ohio golf course, trying not to think too hard while he talked business at the ninth hole.

Our daughter, Celia, hadn’t messaged at all that day. Her last voicemail had come two days before, light and breezy.

“Mom, I really can’t cancel my nail appointment, you know how it throws off my week. Tell Dad I’ll visit him next week, okay?”

Next week. As if time paused for nail polish to dry.

When the service ended, I followed the pallbearers alone. No line of cars, no cousins, no long-lost relatives from out of state. Just the hearse, my aging sedan, and the groundskeeper’s truck.

The cemetery overlooked a strip of Ohio highway, traffic humming in the distance. The groundskeeper leaned on his shovel, head bowed as the coffin was lowered into the earth. Dust on wood, wood on silence.

“From the earth we came,” the pastor murmured, “and to the earth we return.”

My heels sank slightly into the ground. My hands shook, but I didn’t cry. Not because I wasn’t grieving. I had been grieving for months. There’s a depth of sorrow that no longer shows on your face. It sits inside you like an anchor.

A temporary plaque marked his space, waiting for the stone.

George Holloway
Beloved Husband
Father

In my mind, another word hovered just out of reach. Not carved in granite, but etched into my chest.

Forgotten.

When I got home, the quiet felt almost loud. His recliner sat where he’d left it. His slippers still side by side. The TV remote rested on the arm of the chair, pointed at a blank screen. The last show he’d watched was an NFL game, a Sunday in September when he still had the strength to complain about bad calls.

I stared at that remote for a long time before I walked into the kitchen and opened a good bottle of California wine, the kind I usually saved for guests. There were no guests now. I poured myself a glass, sat at the table, and did what people do in America when they want distraction.

I opened Instagram.

I don’t scroll much. I never really got used to the idea of pressing a little heart on photos of other people’s salads. But that night something made me look.

Celia’s profile was public, of course. Her latest post was two hours old: she and three friends at a trendy brunch spot downtown, cocktails in hand, laughter frozen in perfect light.

Caption: “Sunday with my girls. Bottomless mimosas. Living my best life.”

The location tag blinked: Short North Arts District, Columbus, OH.

I checked Peter’s page. A fresh photo from the golf course. Green grass, blue sky, his new driver raised proudly over his shoulder.

Caption: “Perfect weather. Killer swing. Deals made.”

Killer. Perfect. Best life.

I turned off the phone and looked up at the framed photo above the table. George and me on our fortieth anniversary, standing beside the rose bushes he’d planted with his own hands. Back then the roses blazed red every June. This year, they’d browned and dropped their petals days after he went into hospice.

Tomorrow, I thought, I’ll call the lawyer.

If I was the only one who showed up to say goodbye, then I would be the one to decide what came next.

The next morning, I woke before sunrise. Habit. For forty years, George and I had started our days together—coffee, weather report, a few quiet minutes before the world knocked on the door.

The bed was too big without him. The house too still.

I put on my robe and stepped out into the chilly air to check on the rose bushes. Their branches were bare now, thorns dark against the pale sky. I clipped away the dead growth carefully, the way George taught me.

“Cut back what can’t be saved,” he’d say. “It’s the only way anything new grows.”

Back inside, I walked down the hallway to the room we’d always called “the office,” though it was mostly just a desk, an old computer, and three filing cabinets. George’s handwriting labeled each drawer in thick black marker: HOUSE, TAXES, FAMILY.

The last drawer was mine.

I didn’t open that one yet. I went instead to the small top drawer in George’s desk. Spare keys. Rubber bands. Two cheap pens. A folder tucked behind everything else, sealed with a rubber band and labeled in my own handwriting.

Estate.

I carried it to the bed and opened it.

Inside were copies of our will, neatly typed pages with the names of our children written in the margins in blue ink from the last time we’d updated it. Peter and Celia, both listed as beneficiaries. The house, split evenly. The lake cabin up near Lake Erie, split evenly. The main investment account we’d built over forty-five years of work, savings, and saying no to things we couldn’t afford, split evenly.

Nearly three hundred thousand dollars, meant for the children of the man who’d just been laid to rest without them bothering to be there.

My fingers trembled. Not from age, not from arthritis—but from a new feeling, colder than grief and sharper than anger.

Clarity.

They had chosen where to be on the day their father was buried. On a golf course. At brunch. Not even a flower sent, not even a card delivered late.

“Cut back what can’t be saved,” George had said about the roses.

I picked up the phone and called Thomas Fields, our attorney. He’d helped us buy this house back in the late eighties and had been with us through every mortgage, every refinance, every small-town legal form we’d never quite understood.

It went to voicemail, as I knew it would this early.

“Thomas, it’s May Holloway,” I said. “I need to revise my will urgently. Call me back, please.”

I hung up and sat there for a moment, the file folder open on my lap, the pages of our old generosity spread out like a ledger of choices I finally saw clearly.

Later that morning, Thomas called back and asked me to come in.

His office sat between a bakery and a barber shop on Main Street, the kind of small downtown that hasn’t quite given up even though the big-box stores and strip malls have been eating away at it for years. Inside, it smelled faintly of old books and eucalyptus furniture polish.

“May,” he said, rising as I walked in. “I’m sorry about George. I meant to send a card.”

“You were busy,” I said mildly. “Everyone’s busy.”

He gave me a searching look and gestured to the chair across from his desk. “You said there was an urgent change to your estate plan.”

“Yes,” I said, settling into the leather. “I want Peter and Celia removed from my will completely.”

His pen stopped above his legal pad. He didn’t look shocked, just cautious.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked quietly.

I met his eyes. “I buried my husband alone. Our children didn’t come. They didn’t call. They didn’t send a flower from the grocery store. They posted golf swings and cocktails while I watched George’s casket go into the ground.”

I folded my hands on the desk.

“They have made their choices, Thomas. Now I’m making mine. They don’t need my support. They have their own lives. And I’ve already given enough.”

He nodded slowly. “All right. Then we’ll draft a complete amendment.”

“I don’t just want to remove them,” I added. “I want to reroute everything to Ethan.”

“Your grandson,” he said, flipping through the file until he found the right line. “Nineteen, correct?”

“Yes. Celia’s boy.” My voice softened despite myself. “He’s the only one who still knocks on my door without wanting something. He mows my lawn in July. Brings me library books. Asks how I’m really doing—not just to be polite.”

Thomas started jotting notes. “So, you’d like to create a trust for Ethan?”

“I want him to have the house, the cabin, and whatever is left in the accounts,” I said. “But I also want it protected. I don’t want Peter or Celia to be able to pressure him later.”

“That can be arranged,” he said, professional tone sliding into place. “We can set up an irrevocable trust with conditions. Limited access until he’s thirty, except for education or health needs. We can name you as trustee until…”

“Until I’m done,” I finished for him, with a small smile. “Yes. That sounds right.”

For an hour we went over numbers, clauses, contingencies. I did not waver. I did not soften the language. There comes a point in a woman’s life where decisions no longer feel heavy. They feel like taking off a coat that has been too heavy for too long.

“You know,” Thomas said as I signed the preliminary documents, “most people your age still try to keep things equal, even when it hurts them. They say ‘They’re my children, I can’t do that.’”

“I’ve kept the peace for nearly eighty years,” I said, capping the pen. “And it buried me long before it buried George.”

He didn’t argue after that.

When I left the office, the Ohio sky had brightened. People bustled along the sidewalk carrying coffee cups and dry-cleaning. A teenager zipped past on a scooter. Life went on, just as it always does, unconcerned with who is buried and who is forgotten.

I sat in my car for a moment, hands on the steering wheel, and let myself breathe all the way out.

I wasn’t angry anymore. I was simply done.

Back home, I opened the FAMILY file drawer. Inside were several folders labeled in my handwriting.

Peter – Education & Business
Celia – Home & Lifestyle
Ethan – Misc.

I took them all to the kitchen table.

Peter’s folder was thickest.

A $25,000 check in 2004: his first “can’t fail” business idea that folded in under a year. George had frowned when I wrote that one.

“Are you sure?” he’d asked.

“He’s our son,” I’d replied.

A $12,000 transfer in 2010: tax debt “he’d straighten out soon.” I’d called the IRS myself and waited on hold for an hour to make sure the payment posted in time.

Smaller amounts dotted the years: car repairs, moving costs, a down payment to keep him from losing a house he rarely seemed to appreciate.

Celia’s folder read like a highlight reel of her life.

$15,000 – wedding venue and catering. “We just want something simple, Mom,” she’d said. That simple venue had chandeliers and lobster and a live band.

$7,800 – roof repairs after a leak. “The baby’s room is soaked, Mom, we can’t afford this.”

$12,000 – braces for Ethan.

$5,000 – a robotics camp he’d been accepted to, which turned into the one thing he still talked about years later.

Another $20,000 when her husband got laid off during a recession.

“You always save us,” she’d whispered on the phone. “We don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Looking at those numbers, it struck me that I had been their safety net for so long that they’d stopped seeing me as a person at all. I wasn’t Mom. I was a solution.

And yet when the one thing I could not fix happened, when their father left this world, they didn’t show up.

I slid Peter’s and Celia’s folders back into the cabinet, then opened the slim one marked Ethan.

It didn’t have dollar amounts. Just a few report cards, school photos, and one folded piece of notebook paper in pencil.

Grandma May,
Thank you for teaching me to make pancakes. I think you are very wise and funny. One day I will take care of you like you take care of me.
Love, Ethan.

He’d written that when he was eleven. He was nineteen now. I didn’t know if he remembered writing it, but I did.

The phone rang just after lunch.

“Hello?”

“Grandma?” The voice was deeper than I remembered but familiar. “It’s Ethan.”

I closed the ledger in front of me. “Hi, darling. Everything all right?”

He hesitated. “I just heard about Grandpa. Mom didn’t tell me he was… gone. She said he was sick, and then last night my friend sent me something he saw on Facebook. The obituary. I’m so sorry I didn’t call sooner.”

Three weeks. Three weeks since George’s heart finally gave out, and my grandson had to hear from a social media notification.

“It’s not your fault,” I said softly.

“I missed his funeral.” His voice cracked. “I’d have been there if I’d known. You know that, right?”

“I know,” I said. And I did.

He drew a shaky breath. “Can I come see you?”

An hour later, he was at the door. Taller, thinner, with shadows under his eyes from college and life. He hugged me like he wasn’t sure if he still had the right, one arm tentative until I pulled him in and held on.

We sat in the living room, the same room where he’d sprawled on the rug as a child watching cartoons while George pretended not to laugh at them.

“I saw Mom’s post,” he said quietly, staring at his hands. “Brunch. And Uncle Peter’s golf picture. Is it true they didn’t come?”

“Yes,” I said. There was no use softening that part.

He swallowed. “That’s… not right.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”

We sat in the quiet for a moment. The clock in the hallway ticked. A car drove by outside. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, as if reminding the world that life went on.

“I want to do something,” Ethan said suddenly, sitting up. “For you. For him. I don’t know what, but I can’t just keep going like nothing happened.”

“You’re doing something,” I said. “You came.”

He still looked restless, like grief had nowhere to go. I rose and went to the desk, retrieving the manila envelope Thomas had given me, the one with Ethan’s name at the top of every page.

“I want to show you something,” I said, handing it to him.

He opened it, skimmed the first lines, then looked up quickly, alarmed.

“Grandma, this says… this says you’re leaving everything to me. The house, the cabin, the accounts…”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“Why?” His voice was almost a whisper. “Why not Mom and Uncle Peter? They’re your kids. I’m just—”

“You’re not just anything,” I said, my tone firm but kind. “You’re the one who still sees me. You didn’t only call when you needed help. You knocked on my door on ordinary days. You showed up today, without anyone telling you to.”

I took a breath.

“I’ve already spent years helping Peter and Celia. That was my choice, and I don’t regret it. But what I have left, I want to give to someone who understands what it cost to build.”

He stared down at the documents again, then placed them carefully on the coffee table, as if they might break.

“I don’t know what to say,” he murmured.

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” I replied. “Just remember this isn’t about money. It’s about trust.”

His eyes were shiny when he left that day, but his shoulders were a little straighter. At the door, he turned back.

“If I come next weekend,” he asked, “will you teach me how to make pancakes again? I kind of forgot.”

I smiled, a real smile that reached all the way to that ache in my chest.

“We’ll even use the good syrup,” I said.

Celia came the next morning.

I heard her SUV before I saw it, tires crunching gravel, engine too loud for our quiet street. She didn’t knock at first—old habit—but then, perhaps remembering that something was shifting, she rapped twice and walked in.

“Mom,” she called, dropping her oversized handbag on the hall table. “We need to talk.”

I was in the living room, folding laundry. I didn’t stand up.

“I heard from Ethan,” she said, appearing in the doorway. Her lipstick was perfect. Her eyes were sharper than I’d ever seen them. “You’re changing your will?”

“Yes,” I said, laying a towel neatly on the pile. “I am.”

“To exclude Peter and me.” She said it like a headline.

“Yes.”

She laughed then, short and shocked. “You’re serious. After everything we’ve done for you?”

I looked up at her, keeping my voice even. “You didn’t come to your father’s funeral, Celia. You didn’t send flowers. You didn’t call. Two days before, you told me you couldn’t move a nail appointment. And on the day we buried him, you posted smiling photos at brunch.”

“That’s not fair,” she protested. “I was overwhelmed. Work has been—”

“Busy,” I finished for her. “Everyone is busy.”

She crossed her arms. “So you’re punishing us.”

“No,” I said quietly. “I’m accepting the truth. You have your life. I have mine. For years, my money and time flowed into your emergencies. Roof repairs, school fees, trips. I gave because I wanted to. But when I needed my family the most, you weren’t there. That tells me what to do with what is left.”

Her gaze flicked to the side, then back. “And you’re giving it to Ethan? He’s a kid.”

“He’s a young man who shows up,” I said. “That matters.”

She exhaled, a long, frustrated sound. “Well,” she said, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, “I hope this makes you feel powerful.”

“It doesn’t make me feel powerful,” I replied. “It makes me feel peaceful.”

She didn’t answer that. She just left.

Peter arrived the next day, with Meredith at his side. He’d always been punctual for hard conversations.

He knocked and waited this time, hands in his pockets like a teenager.

“Mom,” he said when I opened the door. “Can we talk?”

In the sitting room, they kept their coats on. Meredith’s perfume was soft and expensive, the kind that stays in a room long after the person leaves.

“I heard from Celia,” Peter began, and then, “and from Ethan.”

“I imagine you did,” I said.

He cleared his throat. “We understand you’re upset. We should’ve… we should’ve done better. But changing your entire will, Mom, that’s… extreme.”

I regarded him quietly. “What do you call not coming to your father’s funeral?”

He winced. “I know I should’ve been there. I just… I didn’t know how to handle it. Work was…”

“Busy,” I said again. “I’ve heard.”

Meredith leaned forward, hands folded neatly. “We respect that it’s your decision, May,” she said smoothly. “But Ethan is very young. This is a lot to handle. People might take advantage of him.”

“By people, you mean you?” I asked pleasantly.

She held my gaze for a moment, then looked away.

“Mom,” Peter said, “I know we haven’t been perfect. But we’re still your children.”

“Yes,” I said. “And I will always hope the best for you. But hoping and handing over everything your father and I built are two different things.”

His shoulders sagged. “So that’s it?”

“You made your choices,” I answered. “I’m simply making mine.”

They didn’t stay long after that. At the door, Meredith turned back.

“Just… think about it,” she said. “Please.”

“I have,” I replied. “For a long time.”

A few days later, I went to the bank downtown. The big one with the heavy glass doors and the silent lobby that always smelled like lemon cleaner and polished wood.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Holloway,” the receptionist said. “Mr. Jansen will be right with you.”

Richard Jansen had been our account manager for years. He was the kind of man who ironed his shirt cuffs and kept one picture on his desk—of his labrador retriever, not a person.

“I understand you’ve made some changes,” he said after we sat down.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to be sure they’re fully in place. No loose ends. No surprises.”

He reviewed the notes. “You’ve removed Peter and Celia from all accounts, revoked their transfer rights, and created an irrevocable trust in Ethan’s name. You’re aware this can’t be easily reversed?”

“I don’t want it reversed,” I said.

“We can add safeguards to protect him from outside pressure,” he offered. “Limit disbursements, require certain conditions to be met.”

“That sounds good,” I said. “But I also want him to have room to live. I trust his judgment more than I trust fear.”

He adjusted his glasses. “May I ask… are you doing this from a place of anger?”

I thought about it. About empty chairs, bright brunch photos, golf swings captioned with perfect weather. About years of writing checks without hesitation and one graveside with no one to share the cold.

“No,” I said at last. “I’m doing it from a place of understanding. Sometimes you don’t see people clearly until you watch what they do when they don’t think you’re keeping track.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s rare clarity.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s just late.”

When I walked out of the bank, the air felt lighter.

On my way home, I stopped at a coffee shop George and I used to visit after errands. It had changed—new owners, new menu, louder music—but the bones were the same. I sat by the window, sipped a cappuccino, and watched Main Street go about its day.

No one knew that a small, quiet revolution had just taken place in the corner office of the bank. No one needed to know. Not everything important comes with an announcement.

That evening, my neighbor Lorraine knocked on the door carrying a tin of lemon shortbread.

“I saw Peter’s car here,” she said, stepping in. “Did he bring flowers or just opinions?”

“Just opinions,” I said, and for the first time in a long time, I laughed.

We sat with our tea in the living room, the late-afternoon light slanting through the windows. Lorraine had lived two houses down since 1972. We had shared decades of weather, politics, and the noise of each other’s families through thin walls.

“I told them,” I said after a while, staring into my cup. “About the will. About Ethan.”

“Good,” she said without hesitation. “About time.”

“You don’t think it’s harsh?” I asked.

“I think,” she said, breaking a cookie in half, “that you spent years taking care of everyone, and they learned to expect it. You gave, they received, and somewhere in that rhythm, they forgot you were a human being and not just a safety net.”

She took a bite. “You’re not being unkind, May. You’re being clear.”

I let her words settle. They felt right.

That night, I didn’t turn on the TV for background noise. I made myself a proper dinner—roast chicken, potatoes, green beans with a little salt—and put it on a real plate instead of eating over the sink.

I lit a small candle. Not for romance, not for show. Just because it made the room feel warm.

After the dishes were done, I wandered into the den, the room that had always been George’s domain. His last crossword puzzle still lay on the desk, half finished. Fourteen down was blank.

End of one chapter, start of another.

I smiled faintly. I didn’t know the word, but I knew the feeling.

A few days later, Ethan’s letter arrived.

He could have texted, but he didn’t. That alone told me something about the man he was becoming.

He thanked me—not for the money, but for trusting him. He wrote about his sadness at missing the funeral and his frustration that no one told him the truth in time. He promised to take care of the house. To learn. To show up.

“I don’t know what made you choose me,” he wrote, “but I won’t waste it. I want to build something that would make you and Grandpa proud.”

I read those lines three times. Once as a grandmother, once as a woman who had doubted her choices, and once as the version of myself who had stood alone by a graveside and decided enough was enough.

Days slipped into a new rhythm.

No more late-night messages from Celia about last-minute babysitting. No more calls from Peter hinting that a “small loan” might solve a temporary problem. The silence they left behind was not empty. It was spacious.

I walked more. I sewed new curtains for the kitchen, bright blue ones that didn’t match anything but made me smile. I played the old records George had loved, scratches and all, and once—even I surprised myself—I danced barefoot in the living room.

Not gracefully. Not for long. But enough.

One evening, as I was wiping down the counter, there was another knock at the door.

It was Meredith.

She stood on the porch alone, no SUV in sight. Just her, holding a store-bought apple pie in both hands like a peace offering.

“I didn’t come to ask for anything,” she said quickly when I let her in. “I know that’s what everyone expects.”

I leaned against the counter, waiting.

“I just wanted to say,” she continued, “that I understand why you did what you did. Peter grew up with everything handled for him. I helped that along. You did too. We meant well, but… we didn’t exactly encourage independence.”

Her voice was quiet, honest in a way I hadn’t heard from her before.

“He blames you,” she said. “So does Celia. It’s easier than looking at their own choices. But I wanted you to know that I see it. You held this family together for years. They don’t get to rewrite that part.”

I didn’t respond right away. She looked smaller without the usual shine of certainty.

“You didn’t owe me that,” I said finally. “But thank you.”

She nodded, eyes bright. “Don’t let them take your peace, May,” she said softly. “They’ve taken enough of your time already.”

After she left, I put the pie in the fridge. It would be good with coffee tomorrow.

A week later, a plain envelope arrived from Thomas’s office. Inside was a single sheet confirming what I already knew.

The new documents had been filed. The trust was active. Ethan’s name was now where Peter’s and Celia’s had once been.

No dramatic music played. No trumpet sounded. The house didn’t shake.

It just felt… settled.

That weekend, the first light dusting of snow fell over the yard. Not enough to coat the ground, just a hint that winter was on its way. I stood on the back porch in my cardigan, mug of coffee warming my hands, and watched the flakes melt on the old wooden steps.

Ethan was in the front yard, measuring the porch railing with a level and mumbling to himself. He’d asked if he could fix it. “If I’m going to inherit this place someday,” he’d said, “I should know how to take care of it.”

He’d already tightened the loose boards. Replaced two rusted screws. The railing stood a little straighter, like it was glad someone bothered.

“Grandma,” he called, knocking on the back door, cheeks red from the cold. “Come see.”

I followed him around to the front. He grinned proudly as I tested the railing with my hand.

“It looks good,” I said.

“It still leans a little,” he admitted.

“So does everyone in this family,” I replied.

He laughed, that free, clear laugh George always said was the best sound in the world.

We went inside. I made soup. He asked where the breaker box was, how to check the smoke detectors, what kind of insulation the attic had. We moved through the house together, room by room, him asking and me answering. This time, I was not just solving problems for someone. I was passing something on.

That night, after he left, I sat at the kitchen table and wrote one more letter. Not to a lawyer, not to my children, not even to Ethan.

To myself.

You tried longer than most, I wrote. You gave more than anyone saw. You showed up when it was hard, stayed quiet when it might have been easier to shout, and carried more than anyone realized. You are not unkind for choosing peace. You are not selfish for keeping what you built with your own hands. You are not required to empty yourself to prove your love.

You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to keep something just because it is yours.

You are not invisible.

You are enough.

I folded the letter and tucked it into the same drawer where I kept the old family photos. Not hidden. Just safe.

Before bed, I stepped out onto the porch one last time. The stars were sharp in the clear Ohio sky. The air bit at my cheeks in that way only Midwestern nights can.

I looked up and spoke softly, as if George were still leaning beside me on the railing.

“You were right,” I whispered. “We built something. And it’s going to someone who knows what it took.”

The wind stirred the bare branches of the rose bushes. For the first time since the funeral, my chest didn’t feel heavy. It felt open.

If you’ve read this far, maybe you felt something recognize itself in these words—a quiet ache, a room that has been too silent, a heart that has given more than it received.

If your own life has empty chairs and unanswered calls, if you’ve ever wondered whether it’s allowed to choose peace after a lifetime of giving, let this be your reminder:

You are allowed to protect your heart without apologizing.
You are allowed to give to those who show up, not only to those who expect it.
You are allowed to rewrite the ending.

If this story rang true somewhere inside you, share it with someone who needs to hear it, or just hold it close and sit with it a while.

That, truly, is enough.