Something inside us goes quiet

 Something inside us goes quiet when they're no longer here, like a warmth we didn't know we depended on until it was gone.

The love they gave was honest and simple — no conditions, no distance. It settles into the spaces they used to fill, the corners they curled up in, the moments that now feel just a little too still.

They don't leave us, not really. Their loyalty, their gentleness, their way of just *being there* — we carry all of it forward. And even in grief, we hold them close, because that kind of love doesn't fade. It stays.