Lost for Words

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The nursing home was perched on the hill, overlooking the town, its stone walls stained with years of rain and wind. It was early spring now, the air still crisp but carrying the promise of something warmer, and the trees outside were just beginning to bud, their bare branches reaching out like fragile hands.

She visited daily now, her footsteps slow as she walked through the quiet halls, past the familiar faces of nurses, and residents whose lives had shrunk to the size of these pale rooms. The place smelled of antiseptic and the faint mustiness of old furniture, a scent that clung to her clothes as she moved through it.

Her father’s room was near the end of the corridor, small and sparse, with a window that let in a sliver of pale sunlight. He was sitting up in bed when she arrived, a blanket pulled tightly over his legs. His body had grown frail, his skin thin and almost translucent, his once-large hands resting limply on the quilt. He looked at her as she entered, his eyes tired but soft, as though he had been waiting all day for this moment.

“How are you today, Dad?” she asked, sitting beside him, her voice quiet, as though anything louder might disturb the fragile calm of the room. He smiled faintly, but it was the kind of smile that came from memory, not from joy. She talked to him about the garden—how the crocuses had started to bloom, their purple petals pushing through the earth—and about the birds that had returned, the robin that had been hopping along the fence.

He listened, or at least he seemed to, his head nodding gently in rhythm with her words. But they both knew, in the silence that followed, that there was little left to say. In this time of waiting, as the days grew longer and the sun lingered a little more, words seemed almost unnecessary. She reached for his hand, feeling the coldness of it, and they sat together, the only sound the slow ticking of the clock on the wall. It was enough now just to be there.