A recliner by the window, a few quiet mornings, and a love I didn’t know I was sitting in.
There is a corner in my house I am drawn to without fail. A recliner by the window, where the light comes in soft in the mornings. For a long time I never questioned why I loved it so much. I just did.
A few years ago, my dad came to stay with me from India for a few months. That recliner became his spot for the entire visit. He would sit there with his tea, read the news slowly, and some afternoons he would just lean back and nap, completely unbothered by the world moving around him.
When he left, I kept sitting there. I told myself it was just the best light in the house, the most comfortable seat. It took me a while to understand what was actually happening. One quiet morning it struck me, almost out of nowhere. I wasn’t drawn to the spot. I was drawn to him. I missed his presence so much that I had started occupying the space he left behind, without even realizing that’s what I was doing.
Now that recliner is mine every weekend morning. I sit there with my coffee, and more often than not, I call him. Some Saturdays we talk for an hour. Some Saturdays it’s five minutes and a laugh. But sitting there while I dial his number feels like closing a small circle every single time.
I cannot fully explain the feeling, but I know it when I have it. It feels like he is right there with me, watching quietly, the way he used to from that same recliner. Like some part of him stayed behind in the cushion and the light, working on me in ways I am not even aware of. His energy. His blessing. I don’t need it to make logical sense. I just trust it.
He still visits, and when he does, the recliner goes back to being his without either of us saying a word about it. I just go sit next to him instead, the way I used to as a kid, and that’s its own kind of full.
I don’t know if he realizes it, but he gave me more than a recliner that summer. He gave me a way to find him whenever I need to.
This isn’t the first time I have written about him. There was DAD – You Rock, where I talked about everything he gave me growing up. I just didn’t know back then that a recliner would end up on that list too.
Where does your father’s presence still show up in your life, even when he isn’t physically there?
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