You know that feeling when you realize something about someone you’ve always known, but it doesn’t quite click until much, much later? Like you’re seeing it for the first time, even though it was always right there. That happened to me a few nights ago, after my dad came home from a funeral. He’s a retired teacher. Mr. Henderson, or at least he used to be. The kind of person who always has a perfectly mowed lawn, even in winter, and whose car is always spotless. He wears a tie to dinner sometimes, just because. You get the picture. Pretty much the definition of suburban dad, if you ask me. Always has a story about the HOA or how Mrs. Schmidt down the street is getting a new mailbox that’s clearly against the rules. It’s comforting, in a way, that predictability. Anyway, he went to a funeral for a colleague. Someone he taught with for decades, I guess. Mr. Davies. I remember Mr. Davies. He was the one who always had a different colored blazer for every day of the week, and he’d try to tell jokes in class that no one really got. You know, the kind of teacher who’s just… there. Not bad, not amazing, just… present. My dad said they shared the same breakroom for thirty years. Thirty years. That’s a long time to see the same person every day, even if you don't really know them outside of work. When Dad got home that night, it was different. He usually walks in, hangs his keys, asks about my day. Standard stuff. But this time, he just… walked to his armchair. The big, plush one in the living room, the one he always sits in to read the paper or watch the news. He sat down, and he just… sat. Didn’t turn on the TV. Didn’t grab his reading glasses. Just sat there, absolutely still. I was in the kitchen, getting a snack, and I could see him from the doorway. He had his hand resting on his chest. And he kept doing this thing, where he’d press his fingers against his wrist. Like he was checking something. I figured he was just tired, maybe a little sad about the funeral. Funerals are draining, right? You have to be ‘on’ for hours, talking to people you only vaguely know, making polite small talk about someone who isn’t there anymore. It’s a performance. But he kept doing it. Every few minutes, he’d press his fingers to his wrist. Then he’d shift a little, maybe sigh, and then do it again. It was like he was counting. Not out loud, but just… internally. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t looking at anything. Just staring at the wall across from him. The light from the streetlamp outside cast shadows on his face, making him look kind of… fragile. Which is not how you usually see my dad. I didn’t say anything. What was I supposed to say? “Hey Dad, why are you taking your pulse?” It felt invasive, somehow. Like I was witnessing something private. He stayed there for hours. I went to my room, did some homework, scrolled on my phone. Every time I passed the living room, he was still there, in the same position, his fingers still intermittently pressing against his wrist. It was almost like a tic. A quiet, repeated motion. It got really late. Past midnight. I was getting water and he was still there. The house was completely silent except for the hum of the fridge. He wasn’t asleep. His eyes were still open. And his hand was still on his wrist. It was so… deliberate. Like he was making sure something was still happening. Like he needed confirmation. And that’s when it hit me. The thing about Mr. Davies, the decades in the breakroom, the shared experience of just being… present. My dad was checking his own pulse because someone he had seen every day for thirty years wasn’t there anymore. And he was checking to make sure he himself still was. It’s a weird kind of fear, I think. Not of dying, exactly, but of just… stopping. Of the routine stopping. The predictability. The simple, quiet act of just being alive, when someone else isn't. And it just keeps going. And you just keep checking.