Yesterday, I came home from work and found my father sitting alone in the hallway.
He’s 78.
He was wearing the same suit he wore to my wedding.
He had prepared himself as if he were going out — hair neatly combed, lotion on his hands, shoes polished until they shined. He sat perfectly still, staring down the staircase.
I asked him if he was okay.
Without looking at me, he answered quietly:
“I’m waiting for your mother to come down so we can dance.”
Something tore inside my chest.
My mother has been gone for two years.
He Was Holding on to a Saturday
I approached him slowly, as if any sudden movement might break him.
He sat there with his hands clasped together, as if trying to warm them.
He told me he had put on the suit because it was Saturday. And Saturdays were their day.
When I was a child, every Saturday evening they would dance in the living room. They turned off the main lights and left only a small yellow lamp on. The old radio played softly.
He would hold her by the waist.
She would rest her head on his shoulder.
That was their world.
The Last Dance
He told me the last time they danced was the night before her surgery.
That night, he truly believed they still had many Saturdays ahead of them.
When he finally looked at me, his eyes were full of tears — but he wasn’t crying.
It was that look that exists somewhere between what already happened… and what will never come back.
Waiting for Her to Appear
He said that sometimes it feels like if he stays in one place long enough, she will come down the stairs — just like she always did.
In her colorful robe.
Barefoot.
Hair still wet.
“I know it won’t happen,” he whispered.
“But today it felt like she was calling me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I think of her every single day too — but hearing her absence in his broken voice shattered me.
Love That Refuses to Let Go
Every day, he insists that I leave his coffee cup next to hers — as if she will really come and take it.
Sometimes he sits in the dining room and starts talking:
“Your mother would say this is too salty.”
“Your mother liked this color.”
He hasn’t lost his memory.
He simply… doesn’t want to let her go.
What He Needed Me to Understand
It hurts to watch him wait for her — as if she could appear at any moment.
I don’t know how to tell him that it’s completely normal to keep loving her like this.
Yesterday, when I knelt down to help him take off his shoes — because I didn’t want him to fall asleep wearing them — he held my hand and said:
“Don’t worry. I’m not losing my mind.”
He paused, then added quietly:
“I just don’t want life to take away the only thing that’s still keeping me alive — my memory of your mother.”
Before He Fell Asleep
He apologized for upsetting me.
He said he couldn’t help it — that he still hears her laughter in the house.
I took him to his room, helped him change, gave him some water, and lay next to him for a while, listening to his breathing slow down.
Before he fell asleep, he said:
“If one day I put on the suit again, don’t make me take it off. Your mother always said she wanted us to look elegant — even when we’re old.”
I went back to my room with a heavy heart.
Wishing there were some way to give him even a small part of the love my mother gave him.