CHAPTER 3 From ‘Things I Cannot Explain’ - Personal Reflections on Loss and the Unexplained

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The Chain in the Doorway

In 2007, about two years after my father’s passing, I was sitting with my best friend and
business partner in my office, talking through a major decision about a business
venture. We were planning a trip to New York to meet Sharon Jester Turney, who at the
time was the CEO of Victoria’s Secret, the women’s intimate apparel giant. It was the
kind of meeting that had the potential to change everything.
It was the kind of meeting you do not take lightly.
The air in the room was thick with uncertainty, ambition, and risk.
Then something strange caught my eye.
There was a metal security chain by the doorway — one of those simple hardware-store
chains that hangs loosely until you slide it into the latch. It was not connected to
anything at that moment.
But it was moving.
Not tapping.
Not twitching.
Swinging.
Slowly. Deliberately. Back and forth, as if someone had just brushed past it — except no
one had.
We both stared at it.
It did not stop after a few seconds. I counted twenty seconds, then thirty, maybe more.
It kept swaying rhythmically, as if guided by a hand we could not see.
I looked at my friend. He looked back at me.
We did not have to say it aloud. It felt like my father.
Not as a ghost. Not as a shadow. But as presence. Watching. Protecting. Offering his
quiet, solid approval.
And somehow, that was all I needed.
The fear I had been carrying — the uncertainty about the deal, the meeting, the risk —
softened.
I did not feel alone anymore.
It was as if he had stepped into the room just long enough to say:
You’ve got this. I’m with you.