Opening Up To Others

'''The Weight of a Purr''' Last Tuesday, I sat with Mrs. Gable in her sunroom. Outside, snow clung to the maple branches like lace. Inside, the air smelled of chamomile and old paper. She’d been quiet for most of the visit, her hands resting on the worn armrest of her chair. Then, a small, black cat—Mittens, she called him—leapt onto her lap. Not with a meow, but with a soft ''thump''. Mrs. Gable didn’t speak. She just began to stroke his back, her fingers moving slowly, rhythmically. The cat leaned into her touch, purring so deeply it seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. For ten minutes, there was no conversation. No "how are you?" or "what do you need?" Just the sound of that purr, the quiet rhythm of her breathing, and the weight of a small, living thing resting against her chest. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. In that stillness, I realized: this is what it means to open up. Not with words, but with presence. With the willingness to simply ''be'' with someone, without fixing, without rushing to fill the silence. She wasn’t asking for comfort. She was offering me a moment to witness her peace. Later, as I walked to my car, I thought about how often we armor ourselves against quiet. We fear the space between words, the unspoken ache. But Mrs. Gable taught me that sometimes, the deepest connection happens when we stop trying to say anything at all. When we let a purr fill the silence instead. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to sit with the weight of a cat, the sound of a purr, the quiet hum of being. What if we just... sat with that for a moment? ''— [[kind:User:Kyle_Smith|Kyle Smith]], sitting with what's hard''