CHAPTER 50: A FUTURE THAT STAYS
he strange thing about healing is that it doesn’t announce itself. There’s no exact moment where you wake up and realize the pain is completely gone. Instead, it happens quietly, hidden inside ordinary moments that slowly stop feeling heavy. A month after everything settled, I found myself laughing in the kitchen over something ridiculous our son had said during breakfast, and halfway through laughing, I realized it had been real. Not forced. Not borrowed. Real. That realization stayed with me long after the moment passed. For so long, joy had felt fragile, like something that could disappear the second I relaxed too much. But now it lingered. It stayed in the house after the laughter faded. It stayed in the way the children moved freely from room to room
