The Chair by the Window

The Chair by the Window

There was a chair by the window in our old house. A simple wooden chair, its paint chipped at the edges, one leg slightly shorter than the others. But to my mother, it was a throne. A place of prayer, silence, and quiet battles.

I never paid attention to it growing up. It was always just... there. An old thing nobody really sat on, tucked under the sunlight that spilled through the window each morning. But my mother sat there, every single day, before dawn.

She wasn’t praying loudly. She didn’t chant, she didn’t sway, she didn’t speak in tongues. She just sat — spine straight, palms open, eyes half-closed. Sometimes, I thought she was sleeping. Other times, she seemed to be in another world entirely.

It wasn’t until she died that I understood what she was doing.

After the funeral, everything felt too quiet. The walls echoed her absence like an unwanted tune. Her favorite tea mug still sat in the sink, her scarf still hung near the door. But the loudest silence came from the chair by the window.

For days, I couldn’t go near it. I was afraid, not of ghosts, but of memory — raw and relentless. I thought if I sat there, I’d fall apart.

But on the seventh morning, just as the sun cracked the horizon, I found myself drawn to it. Almost like my legs moved before I did. I sat, slowly, as if I might disturb something sacred.

And then I cried. Quietly at first. Then loud, ugly, broken sobs — the kind of grief that empties the chest.

That was the first time I truly met my mother.

She had been so many things — mother, wife, seamstress, cook, neighbor, caretaker. But she had also been her own person, with her own fears and wounds and longings. I never asked her about them. I never thought to. We assume our parents exist only in the roles we need them for.

But that chair… it was her secret diary. I think now, it was her therapy. Her way of gathering herself before facing a world that often didn't thank her. Her way of letting go of what she couldn’t say out loud.

And perhaps, her way of staying sane.

As the days passed, I started sitting in that chair each morning too. At first, I waited for something — a vision, a message, a feeling. But all I got was quiet. And then I realized: that was the point.

In the quiet, I began to remember small things I’d forgotten. The way she used to hum while folding laundry. The stories she made up while oiling my hair. The time she stayed awake all night when I had a fever, even when her own back was giving out.

I also remembered the fights. The harsh words. The slammed doors. The moments I said things I wish I could take back.

That chair didn’t judge me for remembering both the love and the regret. It held space for it all.

One morning, as I sat there, I heard a knock on the door. It was Mrs. Karim, our elderly neighbor. She held a bowl of kheer in her wrinkled hands.

“I made it the way your mother used to,” she said, her eyes glistening. “She taught me this recipe years ago. Said it reminded her of her own mother.”

I thanked her and invited her in. We sat near the window, and I offered her the chair. She shook her head.

“No, beta. That was her chair. You keep it warm now.”

It’s been months now. Seasons have changed. The leaves outside the window turn gold, then brown, then fall to the ground like forgotten memories. But the chair stays the same.

I don’t sit there every day anymore, but I sit when I need to. When I miss her. When I miss myself.

Sometimes my little niece comes over and climbs into the chair with a book in her lap. She says it’s the best place to read stories. I smile, because in a way, it always was.

That chair by the window — it’s not just furniture anymore. It’s a living archive of love, pain, resilience, and peace.

And maybe, just maybe, we all need a chair like that. A space that holds our unspoken prayers, our invisible wounds, and our quiet hopes.