I told my boss I wouldn’t work during the solar eclipse. It wasn’t about being lazy or wanting a mid-day break to stare at the sky. This eclipse was the last thing my father and I had planned before he died suddenly of a heart attack six months ago. We had bought the special glasses together, mapped out a spot in a local park, and he’d even joked about how the birds would get confused when the world went dark.
My boss, a man named Mr. Henderson who seemed to measure his self-worth by the number of unread emails in his inbox, didn’t want to hear it. He stood in the middle of our open-plan office in downtown Leeds, his face turning a blotchy shade of red. He looked at me like I was a malfunctioning piece of office equipment rather than a human being with a grieving heart. The silence in the room was heavy as everyone else stared at their monitors, trying to pretend they weren’t listening.
He said, “He’s dead already, get over it and get back to your desk, now!” I felt a cold shock wash over me, the kind that makes your ears ring and your vision blur at the edges. I had given five years to this company, worked late nights, and never asked for a favor, but that one sentence stripped away every ounce of loyalty I had left. I stood my ground, my hands trembling slightly as I gripped the edge of my desk, ready to be fired on the spot.
I was ready to walk out right then and there, until a coworker named Callum walked up and handed me a small, tattered leather-bound notebook. Callum was the quietest guy in the office, a senior developer who mostly kept to himself and stayed out of the office politics. He didn’t look at Mr. Henderson; he just looked at me with a steady, knowing gaze that felt like a life raft in a stormy sea. “I found this in the archives during the move last week, Arthur,” he said quietly.
I opened the notebook and nearly collapsed into my chair. It wasn’t an archive from the company; it was a personal logbook that belonged to my father. My dad had worked in this very building thirty years ago, long before it was bought out by the current firm. I had no idea he’d left anything behind, but there was his handwriting—neat, slanted, and unmistakably his. The pages were filled with observations about the stars, the weather, and his dreams for the future.
Mr. Henderson let out an annoyed huff, looking like he was about to start shouting again, but Callum didn’t move. “There’s a note on the last page, Henderson,” Callum said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming suddenly sharp. “You might want to read the date on it.” The boss snatched the book away, his eyes scanning the page with a sneer that slowly started to melt into a look of absolute confusion and then, remarkably, fear.
The note was dated from 1994, and it wasn’t a poem or a star map. It was a formal internal memo my father had written to the board of directors when he was a junior partner here. It outlined a series of serious financial “irregularities” he had discovered involving a young intern who was being groomed for management. That intern’s name was Richard Henderson. My father hadn’t reported him to the police back then; he’d given him a second chance, provided he paid back the funds and stayed on the straight and narrow.
My father had been the only reason Henderson even had a career to begin with. He had kept that secret for decades, never even mentioning it to me, probably because he believed in the goodness of people. Seeing the name of the man he’d saved now screaming at his son for wanting to honor his memory was the ultimate irony. Henderson’s hand was shaking so much the notebook rattled, and he looked like he’d aged ten years in a matter of seconds.
“Go,” Henderson whispered, not looking at me, his voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioning. He turned around and walked back into his glass-walled office, shutting the door and drawing the blinds. The rest of the office remained silent, but the tension had shifted from fear to something else entirely. Callum gave me a small nod, leaned against my desk, and told me to take his car since it was parked right out front.
I drove to the park we had picked out, my heart still racing but my mind finally clear. I sat on a bench near the old oak tree where we used to sit when I was a kid. The air was starting to get cooler, and the light was taking on that strange, silvery quality that only happens during an eclipse. I put on the glasses we had bought together, feeling the plastic frames against my face like a phantom touch from him.
As the moon began to slide in front of the sun, I didn’t feel the “relief” I thought I would. I just felt a deep, overwhelming sense of connection. My dad wasn’t there in the physical sense, but he had managed to protect me one last time from a world that can often be cruel. He had left that notebook not just as a record of his work, but as a shield for a day he probably knew would eventually come. He knew the character of the people he worked with, and he knew how to look out for his own.
When the totality hit, the world went completely dark. The streetlamps flickered on, and the birds truly did stop singing, just like he said they would. I sat there in the middle of the day, surrounded by shadows, and I finally let myself cry for everything I had lost and everything I had found. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and for those few minutes, the office, the bills, and the stress of life simply didn’t exist.
I returned to work the next day expecting a confrontation, but Henderson wasn’t there. Callum told me that he’d resigned overnight, citing “personal health reasons.” The board had found the notebook—which Callum had conveniently left on the copier—and realized that the man leading their company had a history that didn’t align with their new ethics policy. The archives had been a treasure trove of things Henderson had tried to hide for years, and my father had been the silent witness to it all.
The new manager was a woman from the London branch who actually knew what the word “empathy” meant. She called me into her office, not to yell, but to ask if I wanted to take over the department’s mentorship program. She said the company needed more people who understood the value of loyalty and the importance of a life outside the office. I took the job, not for the title, but because I wanted to be the kind of leader my father was—someone who sees the person behind the desk.
I realized then that our lives aren’t just a series of random events. We are built on the foundations laid by those who came before us, and sometimes their love reaches out through time to catch us when we fall. My dad didn’t just plan an eclipse with me; he planned a future where I wouldn’t have to take abuse from anyone. He taught me that your “place” isn’t where someone tells you to sit, but where your values and your heart tell you to stand.
I still have that notebook sitting on my nightstand. Sometimes I open it just to see his handwriting and remind myself that the stars are always there, even when the world goes dark for a little while. I learned that you should never let a job convince you that you are replaceable, because to the people who truly love you, you are the entire world. And no amount of “productivity” is worth sacrificing the moments that make us human.
The eclipse only lasted a few minutes, but the change it brought to my life has lasted ever since. I don’t work late nights anymore, and I make sure my team knows that if they have a family event or a personal loss, they don’t even have to ask. We aren’t just “units of labor”; we are stories in progress, and those stories deserve respect. I think my dad would be proud of the man I’ve become, and the way I finally learned to stand up for myself.
If this story reminded you to cherish the memories of those you’ve lost and to never let anyone diminish your worth, please share and like this post. We all need a reminder to look up at the sky every once in a while and remember what’s truly important. Would you like me to help you figure out how to set better boundaries at your own job, or perhaps help you find a way to honor someone you’ve lost?
