Minnesota,

I see you in the quiet rooms and the empty chairs, in the headlights that cut through snow and the long nights that feel too heavy. The loss you carry is real, and it leaves its mark—not just on hearts, but on the way you move through the world.

Still, there is a fragile beauty in the way you keep going. In the way you gather, in the way you speak names aloud so they are not forgotten. In your sorrow, there is a care that insists on life, that holds tight to the people who remain, and whispers that the weight of grief does not have to be carried alone.

I love you for that, Minnesota. Don’t ever, ever lose it.