The Chair by the Window

I didn’t realize how important the chair by the window was until no one sat in it anymore.

It wasn’t a special chair. Just an old wooden one with a thin cushion that slid around when you stood up too fast. The paint had chipped near the legs, and one screw was always threatening to come loose. But every afternoon around four, my father would sit there, facing the street, cup of tea balanced carefully in his hand like it mattered.

I never asked him why that chair. I assumed it was habit. Or comfort. Or maybe it was the angle of the light.

From the window, you could see everything worth seeing in our small neighborhood. Kids kicking a half flat football. The corner shop owner sweeping dust back and forth without ever really getting rid of it. People passing through but rarely stopping. My father watched it all quietly, like he was reading a story that never quite ended.

When I was younger, I used to sit on the floor beside him. I’d talk about school, about friends, about things that felt huge then. He didn’t interrupt much. He nodded. He hummed. Sometimes he smiled like he already knew how the story would turn out but didn’t want to spoil it for me.

As I grew older, I stopped sitting there. Life got louder. Phones got smarter. I had places to be, or at least places I thought I needed to be. The chair stayed by the window. My father stayed in it. We learned how to live in the same house without really crossing paths.

Then one afternoon, I came home and the chair was empty.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. Maybe he’d gone out. Maybe he was tired. But the tea glass was still there, cold now, a thin ring left behind at the bottom. The street outside kept moving, unaware that something had shifted.

The days after that blurred together. The house felt too quiet, then too loud. People came, spoke in low voices, said things like “He lived a good life” as if that was supposed to land softly. I nodded when I was supposed to. I thanked people when it felt appropriate.

But every afternoon around four, my eyes went to the window.

The chair stayed empty.

Weeks passed. Dust settled. Someone suggested moving the furniture, maybe redecorating, maybe “refreshing the space.” I almost agreed, until I realized what they were really saying. They wanted the absence to be less visible.

One day, without planning to, I sat in the chair.

It creaked under my weight. The cushion slid, just like it always had. From the window, the street looked the same. Kids. Shops. Passing lives. But something felt different. Slower. Heavier.

I noticed things my father must have noticed. The way one man walked the same route every day but never at the same speed. The stray cat that appeared only when it was quiet. The pauses between moments.

I sat there longer than I expected.

In that stillness, I understood something I never had before. My father wasn’t watching the street because he was bored. He was witnessing it. Letting life pass without needing to chase it. Finding meaning in showing up, even when nothing dramatic happened.

Now, some afternoons, I sit there too.

Not every day. I’m still learning how to slow down. But when I do, I don’t scroll. I don’t rush. I just sit, cup in hand, watching fragments of other people’s lives pass by without intrusion.

The chair by the window is still just a chair.

But sometimes, it feels like a conversation that never really ended.