The Quiet Gratitude

What I Hear Beneath It All

I start with the thudding truth
the kind that sits behind the ribs
and refuses to move on command.
Some days I breathe around it.
Some days it breathes for me.

There’s so much noise in the world,
everyone rushing,
everyone filling the air
with words that don’t match
what they feel.
I used to join them,
trying to outpace the ache,
talking louder than my own hurt,
pretending ease was something
I could rehearse.

Loss teaches differently.
It slows you down
in ways you never asked for,
makes you listen
to the small things again,
the steady rise of your chest,
the echo of old laughter
you didn’t realize you missed,
the soft moments
that once slipped through the cracks.

I kept waiting for the moment
I’d finally feel whole again,
as if healing were a ceremony
I’d somehow forgotten to attend.
But it doesn’t arrive
with any ceremony at all.

Here comes,
the shift I didn’t see:
the realization that beneath
all the clatter and strain,
there’s something steady
holding me upright.
Something quiet.
Something patient.
Something like a thank-you
I didn’t know how to hear before.

And it’s enough,
not to erase the hurt,
but to soften the edges.
To remind me
that even in the heaviness,
there is room
for a kind of small renewal.

So I keep moving, slowly,
gathering the gentle things
I once overlooked,
letting them guide me
as I rebuild my sense of self,
not the person I was,
but the person growing
through the ache,
steady and imperfect,
yet undeniably alive.