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When empathy begins to move its feet and bear another’s weight.

Mira stood beneath the fig tree, now bursting with leaves. A stranger rested against its trunk—his clothes torn, eyes wary, but still. She brought water. He did not speak. She sat beside him anyway.

That evening, she asked Grandfather, “Why did I sit with him? I didn’t even know his name.”

Grandfather nodded slowly. “Because you’ve stepped into compassion. Empathy hears the cry. Compassion walks toward it.”

He stirred the fire, then spoke softly.

“Compassion sees the why behind the wound.”

He pulled from his satchel an old tale:

“There was once a wounded wolf who limped into a village. The people cried out in fear—‘She’s a predator! A killer!’—and raised their spears. But a small child stepped forward, not drawn to the teeth, but to the limp. ‘And what are we?’ she asked gently. She wrapped her cloak around the wolf.

Years passed, and the wolf came to stand watch at the village gates—not fierce by nature, but fierce in protection.”

Mira’s eyes widened. “The child… saw the wolf differently?”

Grandfather smiled. “Compassion asks us to see the wolf in ourselves… and the human in the wolf.”

They walked to the river, where Grandfather pointed to the current.

“Compassion is not charity,” he said. “It’s the understanding that survival is mutual. It’s the alchemy that turns suffering into sanctuary.”

Mira knelt by the water. A branch floated by, then a leaf, then a torn sandal.

“So many stories, carried in silence,” she murmured.

Grandfather said, “To be compassionate is to cup the river with your hands—not to stop it, but to offer warmth to what it carries.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “And if I don’t know what to do?”

He placed a hand over hers. “Begin with presence. True compassion does not rush to fix. It waits long enough to feel.”

As night fell, a gentle hush embraced the trees. The fig tree’s branches bent slightly, as if bowing to the one still sleeping beneath it.

Mira whispered, “And what comes after compassion?”

Grandfather’s eyes flickered with a deeper stillness.

“Ah… then we speak of mercy—the choice to release, to protect, even when you could punish. Mercy is when compassion meets power… and chooses healing.”

She nodded. “What is mercy, anyway?”

Grandfather smiled. “Tomorrow, we’ll find out. But know this—mercy is where the heart becomes a sanctuary… even for those who once brought harm.”