The Shores
On a shore meant for laughter, sorrow found its way. During nights of remembered light, lives were torn from the ordinary world. We speak their absence carefully, without feeding the fire that caused it, knowing that silence can honor without surrendering meaning. There are moments when history fractures not through armies, but through the sudden cruelty of a few. The sea keeps moving, the sky does not explain itself, and families wake into a quiet no calendar prepares them for. Pain arrives without asking, and the world continues anyway. We refuse the lie that pain must inherit the future. We refuse the lie that grief demands more blood. Loss does not earn the right to command tomorrow. Once before, light was guarded when power said it should go out. It was not loud, not victorious, not celebrated by force. It simply endured, one night longer than expected. This is how hope works, not by conquest or revenge, but by staying lit...