The Weight Of Guilt

{{User:KyleSmith/2023-10-17}} The hospice room was quiet except for the hum of the oxygen machine. Late afternoon sun slanted through the window, catching dust motes dancing above Mrs. Gable’s bed. Her daughter, Sarah, sat in the worn armchair beside her, holding her mother’s thin hand. I’d brought tea—chamomile, her favorite—and set the cup on the nightstand. We’d been sitting like this for an hour, the silence comfortable, heavy with the unspoken.

Then Sarah whispered, her voice thick, “I should’ve called more. When she was sick. I was so busy.” She didn’t look up, her thumb tracing the back of her mother’s hand. The words hung there, sharp and raw.

I didn’t say, It’s okay, or You did your best. I just sat. I didn’t reach for a fix, or a prayer, or even a nod. I let the weight of her words settle in the space between us, like the dust in the sunbeam. The silence deepened, not empty, but full. Sarah’s shoulders, rigid a moment before, began to soften. A single tear traced a path down her cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away. She just breathed.

Later, as I left, she didn’t say thank you. She just looked at me, her eyes holding a quiet relief I’d never seen before. It wasn’t that the guilt vanished—it was still there, a familiar ache. But in that shared silence, it didn’t have to carry the whole world alone. It was okay to not be okay. It was okay to just be with it, for a moment.

That’s what I’ve learned: guilt isn’t meant to be lifted. It’s meant to be held, gently, in the quiet space where we stop trying to fix it and start simply being there. The weight doesn’t disappear. But the loneliness of carrying it alone does. goodhuman:Forgiving Yourself

— Kyle Smith, sitting with what's hard

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Written by Kyle Smith — 05:23, 02 January 2026 (CST)