🌅 The Beautiful Sky

They say the sky is the same for everyone. That is only half true.

Last night I stood outside with the dogs — the two shih tzus who have kept me company through more than any person has — and we watched the sky change. It was not a sky for anyone else. It was ours, the three of us, alone and unbothered, the way grief sometimes asks to be.

I did not check the phone. I did not wait for a reply that never comes. I just stood, and the dogs sat at my feet, and the sky did the rest. It went from gold to a bruised blue to black, and it did not ask me to be anything other than what I was. That is a rare thing — to be allowed to be still.

The dogs do not care about the record, or the case, or the people who ignored me. They care that I am there, that the door will open again, and that the sky will be there tomorrow. And that, I have learned, is not a small thing. It is the whole thing.

People talk about the sky as if it is empty. It is not. It holds the light long after the sun is gone. It held the light last night while we stood under it, the three of us, and I thought: if the sky can hold the light that is no longer there, then maybe I can too.

I am sharing this because someone else is standing alone with their own two small dogs, or no dogs at all, looking up and wondering if it matters that they are still here. It matters. The sky you are looking at is the same one I looked at last night, and it is not empty, and neither are you.

— The Caledonian Clarion 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿