Stillness In His Final Hour

My imam encouraged me to write this down instead of only telling it during prayer. Sitting with my father in his final hours in a hospital outside Yakima, I felt a stillness enter the room that wasn't from the machines or the silence, something I can only call presence arriving right alongside him at the very end, filling the space evenly, without hurry, the room and both of us included in it. I've never doubted since that he wasn't alone in that moment, and neither was I.