10/28/2025
*TIME IS ALL THAT MATTERS*
I’ve got $1.1 million tucked away in my retirement account, a mortgage-free house with white shutters in the suburbs outside Columbus, and three grown kids with college diplomas hanging on their walls — all paid for by years of sweat and overtime.
By every measure this country keeps, I’m a success. I played the game, and I won.
So why did I feel like the loneliest man in Ohio last Sunday?
My name’s Tom Bennett, sixty-eight years old, retired electrician with the IBEW. I spent forty-two years crawling through attics, wiring basements, and freezing my fingers off on job sites. My hands are scarred, my knees crack like old floorboards, and my back’s been complaining since Reagan was in office. But I always held my head high — because I worked for what I had. Everything.
My wife, Linda, has been gone for seven years now. Cancer took her slow and cruel, like a thief who keeps coming back until there’s nothing left to steal. She used to sit across from me at the kitchen table, humming some old Fleetwood Mac tune, telling me not to “hover” while she set out dinner. She always overcooked the rolls, and I never had the heart to tell her.
Her chair is still there. Same spot, same cushion. I can’t move it. I tried once and had to stop halfway. It felt like dragging her ghost.
Last Sunday, for the first time in ages, all three of my kids came home for dinner. The first time since Linda’s funeral, if I’m honest. I spent all Saturday getting ready — polished the silverware, wiped down the table, made her pot roast from the recipe she scribbled in faded ink years ago. I even baked her cornbread — the one that always crumbled when you cut it but still tasted like heaven.
I thought maybe, just for one night, I could bring back that old feeling. That noise. That warmth.
They showed up right around five. The house filled with voices, and for a moment, I felt young again.
First in the door was Michael, my oldest — forty-one, suit-and-tie, finance world kind of guy. He gave me a quick hug while opening his laptop on the counter. “Markets don’t sleep, Dad,” he said, half-smiling, eyes glued to the glowing screen.
Then came Sarah, my middle kid. Thirty-eight. Works for some environmental nonprofit in Cincinnati. She had her phone in her hand before she even took her jacket off. “Dad, you see what that governor said this morning?” she asked, scrolling furiously. She didn’t wait for an answer.
Finally, Lily, my youngest. Twenty-six. She gave me a proper hug — the kind that still means something — before sitting on the couch, immediately disappearing behind her phone. She’s carrying more student debt than I ever earned in my first five years of work, and she delivers groceries just to stay afloat.
We all sat down. I bowed my head and said grace, like Linda used to make us do.
“Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts…”
Before I even finished “Amen,” the room started buzzing. Literally.
Michael was staring into his laptop, numbers flickering across his glasses. Sarah was firing off messages to someone who was apparently ruining the world. And Lily just kept swiping, her face lit up by that cold, blue light.
The house was full — but I’ve never heard silence so loud. The sound of forks, typing, and notifications filled the space where laughter used to live.
I looked over at Linda’s chair. Empty. Still. And for the first time, I realized something worse than her being gone.
The table was full, but nobody was really there.
My mind drifted back to 1999. Back when work was thin, and I wasn’t sure how we’d make the mortgage. We lived paycheck to paycheck. Linda was working part-time at the clinic. The kids wore hand-me-downs. But every evening, at six sharp, we sat at this same table — laughing about school, teasing each other, passing mashed potatoes like it was gold. We didn’t have money. But we had time. And time was the richest thing we ever owned.
I set my fork down. It hit the plate like a gunshot.
They all looked up. Even Lily.
“You know,” I started, my voice rougher than I meant, “I worked my whole life for this. For you. For this house. For college. For the dream.”
I pointed my fork toward Michael. “So you wouldn’t have to worry about the stock market.”
Then to Sarah. “So you could chase what you care about.”
And to Lily. “So you could study something that made you happy.”
I swallowed hard. “I thought this—” I gestured around the table “—was the American Dream. The money, the security, the degrees. But I was wrong.”
I nodded toward Linda’s chair. “Your mom knew better. She never cared about the bank account or the fancy vacations. She cared about this. About dinner. About talking. About being together. She’s been gone seven years, and I’d trade every dollar I have for one more night with her right there, burning the bread again.”
I looked at them — my kids, my strangers.
“You can’t hug a screen,” I said quietly. “Those people online don’t love you. Those numbers on your laptop won’t sit beside your bed when you’re sick. Life’s right here, and it’s slipping through our fingers.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward this time. It was real.
Michael slowly closed his laptop. Sarah flipped her phone face-down. Lily tucked hers away, eyes wet.
Then, softly, Lily said, “Dad… this cornbread tastes just like Mom’s.”
Sarah reached over and took my hand. “It really does.”
Michael nodded. “Best I’ve had in years.”
And just like that — we talked. For two hours straight. No phones. No markets. No arguments. We talked about old pets and family vacations, about the time Linda painted the kitchen bright yellow and hated it two days later. We laughed. Real laughter — the kind that shakes the dust off your soul.
For those two hours, her chair didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt full.
When they left that night, they hugged me longer than usual.
“Thanks, Dad,” Lily whispered. “I needed this.”
I did, too.
I’m writing it for whoever needs to hear it:
Don’t wait for Thanksgiving. Don’t wait for the right weekend. Don’t wait.
Because one day, the seats around your table will start to empty, and all the things you thought mattered — the job, the bills, the noise — won’t.
Put the phone down. Close the laptop. Look someone you love right in the eye.
Because in the end, the only thing you’ll ever wish you had more of… is time.
