The threshold.

"Love is not when I take on the suffering of another, but when I do not let them live their lives instead of mine."

The boy called his mother every morning.

Not out of duty.

But because it stayed close.

— What should I buy? — he asked.

— I don't need anything — came the answer.

The boy already knew that this was not about the food.

But about the fact that the mother did not want to ask.

She was sick.

She was tired.

Her body indicated what words could not.

One morning she said:

— Now I have to clean the karma of the family so that your life is not miserable.

The boy did not speak back.

He did not argue.

He did not defend himself.

Because in that sentence there was not help, but sacrifice.

And sacrifice always demands a price.

There, at that moment, he understood: it wasn't that his mother was suffering that hurt, but that he had to bear her suffering instead.

He didn't call her again that day.

Not out of punishment.

Not out of defiance.

He just stopped at the threshold.

Because he realized: love isn't about enduring everything for each other.

Sometimes, love is about not letting the other person's pain settle in our lives.

The boy didn't close the door.

He just didn't enter through it again,

when the sentences inside were heavier than a person could bear.

And he said to himself silently:

My life is not a burden of karma.

My life is mine.

The door remained there.

If one day they would call him in through it, not as a victim, but as a person.

And until then, the boy had learned to stop.

"There comes a point where the child can no longer walk with his mother, but only stay by her side — one step away.

Not by turning his back.

Not by running away.

But by stopping.

Because life is not karma to be accepted.

But a path that each person must walk for themselves.

And sometimes the greatest love is not the entry, but the threshold."