After sharing one of the hardest moments our family has ever lived through, I needed space.

What I found when I returned wasn’t answers—it was gratitude. Not the shiny kind. The grounding kind. The kind that steadies me when depression whispers, when the future feels uncertain, and when joy and pain refuse to take turns.

This is a reflection on gratitude as practice, as anchor, and as a way to hold more than one truth at a time.