# Sadness Can Wait The day breaks open like a pomegranate, seeds spilling gold across the kitchen counter. My daughter asks for more jam on her toast, and I remember my mother's hands, how they knew the exact moment to pull the bread from the fire. The mailman whistles something old— a tune my father used to hum while shaving in the bathroom, steam rising like ghosts that never quite learned to haunt. There is a bird outside that hasn't learned its name yet, and I think: neither have I, not really. The world insists on calling me by titles— mother, wife, the woman who waters the ferns on Tuesday mornings. But today the ferns can wait. The bills can wait. Even the small ache behind my left eye can wait. Because sadness is patient. Sadness knows where I live. It has my phone number, my schedule, the exact shade of my sorrow. It can afford to wait while I sit with my daughter, while we make crowns from the newspaper, while I let myself be useless in the best possible way. The bread will burn eventually. The pomegranate will rot. My daughter will grow tall enough to reach the jam herself, and my mother's hands will rest, and my father's tune will fade into a silence I cannot sing back. But not today. Today, sadness can wait. Today, I am busy with small eternities.