Today a veteran approached me, he served on WWII

He looked tired. Not just physically, but deep in his soul. His eyes held the weight of decades of pain.

He sat near me without saying much at first. Then slowly, he began to talk.
He told me about the friends he had lost. The fear. The guilt. The nightmares that never truly left him.
His voice trembled. He cried.

I let him finish. I didn’t interrupt.

Then I reached out and placed my hand gently on his head.

In that moment, I allowed myself to feel everything he carried. His pain, his memories, his grief.
I held it inside me, and I transmuted it into something else.
Into peace.
Into love.

He looked at me after that. Silent. Lighter.
There was a soft smile on his face, like he had just woken up from a nightmare.

He thanked me. Then he walked away slowly, but this time, not as a man broken by war.
He walked away healed.