The River That Took My Sorrow Away

Some places don’t just exist in geography — they live in memory.

For me, that place was the river.

It ran quietly through the edge of our village, hidden between tall reeds and whispering trees. My mother used to call it "the soul’s mirror." She believed it could show you what you were truly feeling, even if you didn’t want to admit it.

I hadn’t been back there in years. Not since she died.

Her loss hit me like winter: sudden, cold, and cruel. The kind of pain that doesn’t come all at once — it arrives in layers. First silence. Then disbelief. Then the endless ache of absence.

Everyone around me moved on. They said time would heal. But I wasn’t looking for healing. I was looking for escape.

So one morning, before the world fully woke up, I walked out of the house with nothing but a notebook and my mother’s scarf. I made my way toward the river like a child returning to an old friend.

The path had changed.

Bushes had grown wild. Some trees I remembered were now stumps. But the sound — the soft rush of the river — was the same. As if it had waited for me.

I found the flat stone where she used to sit.

She would read poetry there, sometimes aloud, sometimes in her heart. Once, when I was nine, I asked her what she was reading. She smiled and said, “I’m listening to the river’s poem today.”

I never understood what she meant — until that morning.

As I sat down, the river shimmered with early sunlight. Mist rose gently from the surface like breath from a sleeping giant. The air was still, the world hushed.

And I… broke.

Tears came without warning, hot and hard. I clutched her scarf in my hands and cried like I hadn’t allowed myself to since the funeral. Every sob was a word I hadn’t said. Every gasp was a memory too painful to keep.

“I miss you,” I whispered to no one.

But the river replied.

Not in words — but in its way.

A gust of wind passed gently over the surface, carrying a fallen flower toward me. It stopped right at the riverbank.

I picked it up.

It was a white jasmine — her favorite. The same flower she planted outside our kitchen. But there were no jasmine trees near the river. None.

That was the moment I knew: she was there.

Not as a spirit or shadow.

But in the wind.

In the water.

In the memories that wrapped themselves around that river.

I opened my notebook and began to write — not poetry, not a story — just her. Her laugh. Her voice. The way she tied her hair. How she never raised her voice, even when angry. How she said the river never forgets the ones who loved it.

And somehow, as I wrote, the sorrow didn’t leave… but it softened.

Like a sharp stone rubbed smooth by the flow of water.

I stayed until dusk.

Birds chirped above. A deer passed by without fear. The world continued — not in ignorance of my pain, but in quiet companionship with it.

I stood, brushed dirt from my knees, and whispered a thank you to the air.

Not to the river.

Not to the trees.

But to her.

🌄 Now, I Visit Often.

Not because I’m still broken.

But because the river showed me how to be whole again — even with missing pieces.

Some wounds don’t heal by forgetting. They heal by remembering gently.

The river didn’t take my sorrow away completely.

It just carried it for a while, until I was strong enough to hold it differently.

And that… was enough.

🔚 Ending Note (Vocal Style):

If you carry grief that feels too heavy, find a quiet place.

One that listens without asking questions.

One that mirrors your heart, not your pain.

Maybe, like me, you'll find a river that remembers what you forgot —

And helps you remember who you still are.