Staying home to help while all your friends move away is its own kind of brave. It just doesn’t get a farewell party.

Some decisions are invisible precisely because they involve staying. Nobody throws a party for the person who chose to be near a family that needed them, and the choice does not photograph well, so it can feel like an absence of a life rather than a version of one. It is a version of one, and usually a costly one.

Let yourself acknowledge what you gave up rather than pretending it was easy. Keep something of your own going alongside the responsibility, even something small. And stay in touch with the people who left, since the distance is logistical rather than final.