“I just want to make it to your prom,” he told me one night at the kitchen table. “And your graduation. I want to see you walk out that door like you own the world.”
“You will,” I promised.
But he didn’t.
A few months before prom, he passed away. I didn’t even make it to the hospital in time.
I found out standing in the school hallway, staring at the same floors he used to clean.
After that… everything blurred.
I moved in with my aunt, Margaret, the week after the funeral. Her house smelled like cedar and detergent—nothing like home.
Then prom season came.
Girls talked about expensive dresses, showing pictures that cost more than my dad ever earned in a month.
I felt completely disconnected.
Prom had always been our moment.
Now… I didn’t even know what it meant.
One evening, I opened the box of Dad’s things from the hospital. His wallet. His watch. And at the bottom—his neatly folded work shirts.
Blue. Gray. That old faded green one.
I held one for a long time.
And then the idea came.
Clear. Certain.
If he couldn’t be there… I’d bring him with me.
“I barely know how to sew,” I told my aunt.
“I do,” she said. “I’ll teach you.”