There was a time when I assumed certain things would always be there.
A holiday table filled with familiar faces. The same traditions repeated year after year. Conversations, laughter, stories, and plans for the future.
It all felt so familiar, so woven into the fabric of life, that I rarely stopped to consider it might one day be different.
Why would I?
Most of us live as though there will always be another gathering, another chance to say what we mean.
Then life does what life always does.
People move away, relationships change, chapters end. One day we look around and realize that some of the people who once filled the table now live only in our memories.
For a long time, I thought the lesson was about loss.
Now I think it is about presence.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder how many of those moments I truly experienced and how many I simply assumed would happen again.
Perhaps that is the real invitation of life.