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My first Christmas as a widow was meant to be simple and quiet. I worked my shifts at the library, went home to a house that felt far too large, and tried to survive each day without falling apart. Three months earlier, cancer had taken my husband after two long years of treatments, false hope, and exhaustion.
Grief rearranged everything—his jacket still hung on the chair, his shoes waited by the door, and his toothbrush stood beside mine like he’d only stepped out for a moment. I took the library job because it was calm and predictable, a place where I could shelve books, fix printers, and cry silently when no one was watching. Every morning outside the library gate, an older man sat on the same bench, bundled in a worn coat and knit cap, always reading the same folded newspaper.
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