On The Moth and the Memory

Stillness, Silence and friends we lose along the way.

Your Fading Memory. Writerscafe.org

There was a night, years ago, when I watched a moth slowly burn to death in the curve of a glass candleholder. It had flung itself too eagerly at the flame, danced in the wax-light like it had something to prove, then collapsed in one final, frantic flutter. I remember crouching close, unable to intervene, watching its tiny body twitch as the wax pooled around it. And the worst part? It didn’t die immediately. It spasmed softly, like it was confused. Like it had only just realized that the warmth it craved was a lie.

Sometimes I think about that moth when I think about you.

It’s a strange association, I know. But when something fragile hurls itself toward a light too quickly, when it aches for warmth and gets burned instead, what else is there to compare it to? You, too, once mistook fire for comfort. You sought heat in places that only knew how to destroy gently.

You were beautiful like that. Like something in pain pretending to glow.

You were the kind of person who apologized for crying mid-laugh. Who shared Spotify links like lifelines and confessed your dreams like secrets you weren’t sure you were allowed to have. There were nights when you messaged me out of nowhere with sentences like “I feel like I’m dissolving” or “My heart is a wet sponge.” No context. Just raw bleedings of the soul, sent across regions like Morse code.

You lived in a large, expensive house with rooms that echoed too loudly and parents who thought money was a good enough replacement for presence. Your walls were painted with pastel guilt. Your meals were plated like performances. They sent you to the best schools, gave you the newest phones, but couldn’t sit still long enough to ask what your silences meant.

You never said it outright. But I knew.

I knew because you put my name on your emergency contact list, even though I lived hundreds of miles away. I knew because every time the darkness lifted, even slightly, you’d insist on paying me, offering money like a way to measure your gratitude and then bristle when I declined. You once texted, “I just feel better knowing someone far away might still care, even if no one near does.” And I carried that. Like a stone in my pocket. Heavy. Necessary.

Then came the quiet catastrophe.

You disappeared for a day. Then another. Then three.

Your statuses didn’t change. Your typing dots never blinked. The online world moved like it always does, ruthless and loud, but you were gone-softly, scarily gone. It felt like watching a familiar window go dark in a house I couldn’t reach. I messaged. I called. I sent long rambles just in case you were lurking silently on the other side.

It wasn’t until the hospital called that I felt real again. “She’s safe now. A little weak. But she’s going to be okay.”

I whispered thank you, ended the call, and cried softly, into the sleeve of my sweatshirt, the way you once did. You were always quiet about your sorrow, tucking your tears away like contraband, as if grief itself was something shameful to possess. I didn’t know where to put this hurt. This grief of almost losing someone who wasn’t technically mine to lose. There’s no category for that in this world.

After that, your family did what families often do in the second act: they showed up. Therapists were arranged like centerpieces. Gym memberships. Clean eating. Vitamin D. Books. You began the long, winding walk back to yourself. The one with smiling photos and scheduled wellness.

And I waited.

Waited for your texts. Your voice notes. Your updates.

But they stopped coming.

At first, it was the usual “Sorry, busy week.” Then, “Miss you. Just swamped.” And now… now it’s silence. Not cruel, not intentional, but silence all the same. A kind of forgetting that doesn’t slam doors, but the one that just stops opening them.

I used to know your moods by the cadence of your hellos. I could tell how dark your day had been by the punctuation of your texts. Now, I stare at your profile picture like a stranger might. Still beautiful. Still alive. But unreachable in the ways that used to matter.

You don’t need me anymore. I get it.

That’s the point of healing, isn’t it? That you learn to walk without leaning. That the emergency contacts gather dust because the danger has passed. And I want, God, I want to be proud of that.

But somewhere deep in the ache of my chest, I confess - I miss being needed.

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There’s a selfish kind of grief in watching someone outgrow your importance. In realizing that all the nights I stayed up with you, talking you down, talking you through, stitching your broken hours with words were always going to be temporary scaffolding.

I was your crutch. And you walked away.

Not angrily. Not cruelly. Just… forward.

And now, I’m left in the quiet. A friend without a function. A light that still burns in case you need to find your way back.

But I wonder if you ever look for it.

Because I still do. I still scan the crowd for you in poems and playlists and memories I never gave permission to linger. I still remember the sound of your voice cracking on the word “fine”. I still remember what it meant to be the one person who saw your pain and didn’t flinch.

I’m glad you’re better. Truly.

But better came like a thief and took you with it.

And I? I still remain the same solitary voice at the end of an unringing line, not because I wish to be needed, no. But because I once was, and memory is a stubborn guest. I do not desire to be a walking stick for temporary ailments nor a balm applied in haste. I now reject the vanity of transient usefulness.

I remain, alight, enduring, like a candle left in the window of a house forgotten. Not to beckon, but simply to be found, should you ever turn back through the fog of your healing. Still lit. Still here.

I stay, not for anything I offer, but because love, stubborn as ever, keeps me here.