Kuala Lampur, Dec. 23 -- As the year tilts toward its end, a collective silence falls. We pause not because life has reached perfection but because we are no longer the people we were in January.

We are the survivors of a year that did not go as planned. We are the products of moments that broke us, changed us and quietly gifted us lessons we never thought to ask for.

At the start of this year, many of us carried our whys like stones in our pockets. Why did this fall apart? Why did they leave when the shadows grew longest?

In counselling, we often speak about "processing" pain in order to find closure.

But this year taught us a harder, yet liberating, truth in that closure is not always found, it is lived through.

Some stories do not...