in the Middle of the Night
Late one night, I found my son sitting upright on his bed, whispering softly into the darkness as if speaking to someone unseen. My heart skipped — children often notice what adults dismiss. But instead of fear, his face was calm, even comforted. When I asked what he was doing, he simply pointed toward the rocking chair in the corner and said, “Mommy, the big man sits there. He sings.” The chair was empty, yet it swayed gently, as though someone had just risen from it.
The next morning, under the reassuring light of day, I asked him again about the “big man.” My son described him carefully: kind, old, and wearing “a hat like the ones in Grandpa’s pictures.” My chest tightened. My father had passed away long before my son was born — and the hat he mentioned was one my father always wore, captured in old photos my child had never seen.
Curious and trembling a little, I brought out an old family album and set it in front of him. He flipped through the pages until he stopped on one picture, tapping it with certainty. “That’s him, Mommy. That’s the man who sings.” It was my father — smiling beneath that same wide-brimmed hat. My son wasn’t scared. He looked serene, as if he recognized something familiar and kind.
That night, as I tucked him into bed, I whispered, “If someone is watching over you, then we’re lucky.” He smiled and drifted off to sleep — no whispers, no stirring, just peaceful rest. The house was still. The chair in the corner stayed perfectly still too — as though its job, for now, was done.