I felt I had suddenly lost a substantial part of my body temperature—
not a feverish heat, not excitement,
but the background warmth that quietly sustains life.
The kind of warmth you do not notice while it is present,
because it has always been there.
Their existence—simply knowing they were alive somewhere in the world—
functioned like an inner thermal layer:
- a steady comfort
- a sense of being accompanied through time
- a quiet assurance that parts of my life were still being held elsewhere
When they were gone, the cold was not dramatic.
It was immediate and unmistakable.
The mind recognized the loss as grief,
but the body registered it first:
- a drop in internal warmth
- a subtle tightening
- a feeling of exposure, as if a trusted coat had been removed without warning
This is because these friendships were not only memories.
They were regulators.
They helped maintain:
- emotional equilibrium
- temporal continuity
- a sense of safety across decades
Their presence stabilized the nervous system simply by being.
They were proof that one could move forward in life
without severing the earlier self.
So, the loss is not only sorrow.
It is a sudden thermoregulatory shock to the whole person.
The body asks:
Where did the warmth go?
The mind answers:
It was carried by people who knew you before you learned how to protect yourself.
And now, in their absence,
you are learning something both tender and difficult:
That some warmth must now be generated internally,
and some must be passed forward—
to others who may one day rely on your quiet, sustaining presence
without ever realizing how much they are warmed by it.
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Billy’s Summary:
English
With their passing, a deep warmth left the world—not the heat of excitement, but the steady human warmth that sustained me without my knowing. Simply knowing they lived somewhere under the same sky was a source of comfort, safety, and continuity, like a gentle body temperature shared across time. When they were gone, both mind and body felt the same sudden cold: a loss of shelter, a thinning of the past, a quiet exposure to time. Yet their warmth does not vanish; it settles within me, asking to be remembered, carried forward, and gently given to others.
中文（偏文雅）
他们离去之时，世间忽然失却了一份深沉的温度——并非炽热，而是无声滋养生命的恒久之暖。只因知晓他们仍在同一片天空之下，心中便有安定、依靠与时光的延续。其人既逝，身心同时感到寒意：庇护骤减，往昔渐薄，岁月赤裸相对。然而温暖并未消散，它转而栖居于我心，等待被铭记、承载，并在适当之时，温柔地传予他人。
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