Somewhere He Believed There Was More

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There are songs that shake you.
And there are songs that build you — quietly — stair by stair.

For my dad, “Stairway to Heaven” wasn’t just a song.
It was a moment of stillness in a noisy world.
A rare place where he felt held by something bigger.

He never talked about spirituality much.
He wasn’t religious.
But when this song came on, something in him softened —
like it was speaking to a part of him that hadn’t been spoken to in years.

Maybe it reminded him of youth.
Maybe it reminded him of the part of himself he had to hide to survive.
The dreamer.
The wonderer.
The part that still believed in more.

“There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold…”
He’d quote that line sometimes — not as a joke, but as a kind of riddle.
He knew what it was like to chase the wrong things.
To put your hope in something hollow.
To look back and wonder what it was all for.

But this song…
It didn’t condemn.
It guided.

I think he loved how the song evolved — soft and poetic at first,
then slowly building into something electric.
Like life.
Like grief.
Like waking up after years of being numb.

And when Page’s solo came in — that aching, soaring guitar —
he’d close his eyes.
And it was like he was somewhere else.
Somewhere truer.

Maybe it gave him peace.
Or at least the sense that peace was possible.
That beneath the noise and pressure and survival,
there was still a stairway.
Still a path.
Still a chance to reach something he couldn’t quite name — but deeply felt.

Somewhere in that song,
I think he believed there was more.
And maybe that was enough.