He sank into a chair, his shoulders heaving with the kind of grief I’d never seen from him before. This was the man who had been my rock, my hero, and now he was breaking right in front of me.
It shattered something in me to watch it.
I kneeled beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Dad,” I said quietly. “The promise was honored. He sent Ellie and he sent the card.
He remembered you.”
He looked at me, his eyes red and raw. “But I didn’t get to see him. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
I didn’t have the right words to fix it, but I stayed with him, my hand steady on his shoulder as the waves of sorrow crashed over him.
Some promises, I realized, didn’t need witnesses to matter.
Maybe this was one of them.
Source: amomama
