Grace in Grief

In the valley where silence sinks deeper than time, a young woman disappears into herself, and finds a voice on the page.

- Kabra Altaf

She was the type of girl who didn’t look away from truth.

Even when it trembled in her throat and emptied rooms, she carried it like something sacred. Something that might keep her honest, even if it couldn't keep her safe. Truth was how she stayed upright. It shaped her spine.

At home, school, and crowded lanes, she moved with a grace that masks exhaustion and comes from years of holding yourself together. She smiled at the right times, apologized quickly, and asked for little.

Her tribe in Kashmir grow up with this unspoken script: Be good, kind, and careful. She followed it like a second language. She believed that if she did things right, if she stayed spirited and strong, life would unfold gently.

Then came the season.

The ground beneath her shifted. People vanished. Familiar rhythms lost their meaning.

She didn't fall apart, she faded.

Words stopped coming, and thought became fog. She drifted through her own life like a stranger in borrowed clothes.