When you lose a parent, you realize how vital they are to the

Host: The rain had stopped, but the streets still glistened, each puddle reflecting the streetlights like fragments of a broken sky. A faint fog lingered, curling around the lamp posts like memory smoke. Inside a small, dimly lit apartment, Jack sat by the window, a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. The radio played an old jazz record, the trumpet notes soft and sorrowful, dissolving into the air like the breath of someone long gone.

Jeeny stood by the bookshelf, her fingers tracing the spines of old photographs, some yellowed, some torn, all trembling with a quiet nostalgia.

Host: The night was heavy with the kind of silence that only follows loss — not empty, but full of what can never return.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet all night.”

Jack: “I’ve been… remembering.”

Jeeny: “Your father?”

Jack: nods slowly “Yeah. It’s strange. You go through life thinking you understand what loss means. Then it happens, and you realize you knew nothing. It’s like someone pulled the floor out from under you, and suddenly you’re floating — no ground, no map, no center.”

Jeeny: “Neneh Cherry said something once — that when you lose a parent, you realize how vital they are to the foundation of your life. And that the pain, as terrible as it is, somehow brings new energy.”

Jack: “Energy?” He laughs, bitterly. “I don’t see energy, Jeeny. I see a void. A long, black hallway where his voice used to be.”

Host: The radio crackled, the song fading, replaced by the low hum of static. Jack’s reflection in the window looked older, wearier — as though grief itself had sculpted his face.

Jeeny: “I know that hallway. I walked through it when my mother died. At first, it’s endless. Then one day you realize — you’re walking because of them. Every step hurts, but every step is borrowed strength.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But it doesn’t change the emptiness. You don’t recover from losing a parent, Jeeny. You just learn to disguise the limp.”

Jeeny: “You don’t recover. But you evolve. The loss rewrites you. My mother used to say, ‘We live twice — once with them, and once through what they’ve left in us.’ It’s not a wound; it’s an inheritance of light and ache.”

Host: A flicker of lightning painted the sky, illuminating Jack’s eyes, the faint moisture glinting there like the edge of a hidden tear.

Jack: “You make it sound beautiful. But it’s not. It’s chaos. I can’t call him, can’t argue with him, can’t prove I was right about anything. All I have left are echoes — his laughter when I failed, his silence when I needed him most.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point. You’re hearing him differently now. Not as a man in front of you, but as a voice within you. When my mother died, I stopped hearing her for months. Then one day, I was cooking — and I heard her humming. Not outside. Inside. That’s when I knew she hadn’t left — she’d changed her address.”

Jack: softly “Changed her address… That’s something.”

Host: A train horn wailed in the distance, its sound trembling through the walls like a low, mourning song. The rain began again, slow and steady, tapping like a heartbeat against the glass.

Jack: “You ever think about how losing them makes you older? Not in years, but in weight. Like the world just gets… heavier.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But that weight can become muscle. You start carrying the world differently. You stop running from it. You learn what really matters.”

Jack: “You talk as if grief is a gift.”

Jeeny: “Not a gift — a forge. It burns everything false away. When my mother died, I stopped chasing what didn’t matter. Fame, money, approval. I started painting again — because that’s what she loved. I think that’s what Neneh Cherry meant — that grief doesn’t just take; it gives back energy in disguise.”

Host: The room grew quieter, the only sound the soft click of rain and the slow breathing of two people learning how to share silence.

Jack: “I wish I could believe that. All I see are the things I didn’t say. The phone calls I didn’t make. The apologies that never left my mouth.”

Jeeny: “Then say them now.”

Jack: shakes his head “To who?”

Jeeny: “To him. To the space he left behind. To yourself. The words don’t need ears to matter — they need truth.”

Host: Jack looked up, his grey eyes glimmering, the reflection of the streetlight trembling across his pupil like a fragile memory of the sun.

Jack: “He wasn’t an easy man, Jeeny. He taught me everything through silence. Every lesson came wrapped in distance.”

Jeeny: “And yet, here you are — strong, alive, still searching. Maybe that was his way. Some people love like stone walls — cold on the surface, but solid when you lean on them.”

Jack: “You really think he loved me?”

Jeeny: “I think he built you. And love takes many forms. Some raise you with laughter, some with quiet endurance. But all of them leave fingerprints you can’t erase.”

Host: The rain intensified, beating softly against the window, each drop catching the faint city glow — small, fleeting sparks against the darkness.

Jack: “You know, he used to take me to the pier every Sunday. Never said much. Just sat there, fishing in silence. I used to think he was bored of me. Now I think… maybe he was teaching me how to sit still with the world.”

Jeeny: “That’s the energy, Jack. That’s the remarkable part. What once hurt becomes understanding. The curtain pulls back, and you see — they were your foundation, yes, but they also gave you the courage to build your own walls.”

Jack: “Foundation. Walls. You make grief sound like architecture.”

Jeeny: “It is. You rebuild your house with the pieces they left behind. Some walls are made of sorrow, others of memory, but somewhere — somewhere — there’s a window they left open for light.”

Host: Her voice cracked slightly, and for a moment, her eyes shimmered, reflecting not just empathy, but remembrance — her own mother’s ghost quietly present in the room.

Jack: “You miss her, don’t you?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But she’s here. When I laugh. When I care too much. When I forgive. That’s how they stay alive — not as ghosts, but as instincts.”

Jack: “You make it sound less lonely.”

Jeeny: “It is less lonely, once you realize death doesn’t end love. It just changes the conversation.”

Host: The record player clicked as the needle lifted, leaving the room in a deeper kind of silence — one filled not with absence, but with breath.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what life really is — a series of unfinished conversations.”

Jeeny: “And maybe death is the echo that teaches us to listen.”

Host: The rain stopped once more. The clouds parted, and a faint silver light seeped through the window, gliding across Jack’s face. He looked tired, but something in his eyes softened — a small surrender, a quiet peace.

Jack: “You know… I think I feel him tonight. Not as pain. Just… presence.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “Then he’s listening.”

Host: The two sat in silence, the city hum returning like a slow heartbeat. Outside, the puddles shimmered, catching the first faint reflection of dawn.

Host: And in that delicate, aching hour — somewhere between mourning and memory — the curtain that divided the living from the lost felt thin, almost translucent. For a breathless moment, it was as if the world, in all its fragility, whispered the truth Neneh Cherry had once known — that the deepest pain can also become the brightest energy, and that to lose someone is not to be abandoned, but to be quietly transformed.