The remaining space at the table.

There was a family where the table was always full.

On Sundays, a napkin was placed under the tablecloth,

and over the steaming soup, stories floated that no one told anymore, yet everyone knew.

One day, someone was missing from the table.

No one pulled out their chair, and their spoon remained untouched.

But when the soup was cooked, the same smell spread through the house again, and somehow everyone knew: they were here too.

Not in the body, but in the movement of the grandmother tasting the soup, the father straightening the tablecloth, and in the silence that no one wanted to break.

Because memory does not live in the past.

It is there in the small moments of everyday life.

When we laugh at something the same way, when a familiar melody plays, or when the light falls on the wall exactly as it used to.

The family learned that no one truly "goes away."

The voice of those who loved remains in the air,

their smile in the light, and their soul in the people they touched.

When they sat down at the table, that chair was no longer empty.

Because memory is not absence, but presence—just quieter than the others.

And after a while, when someone said "bon appetit" again,

they all knew that he had toasted them too.