"Dad, Tell Me About Your Life"

Dad, Tell Me About Your Life.

I’ve seen your hands—calloused, steady, full of history—and wondered how many lives they’ve lived. You’ve always been the quiet type, the one who listens more than speaks, the one who fixes broken things while leaving your own aches untouched. But today, I don’t want silence. Today, I want your story.

Tell me about your childhood, Dad. Not just the parts everyone knows—the town you grew up in, the names of your siblings—but the details. What games did you play under the sun, barefoot in the dust? What made you laugh so hard your stomach hurt? Who was your first friend, and what did you dream about before the world told you what was possible?

I imagine you as a boy with wild hair and wild hopes, chasing clouds with nothing but time on your side. Maybe you fell off your bike a dozen times, but kept riding. Maybe you failed a class and didn’t tell your parents, hoping to fix it before they noticed. Or maybe you didn’t fail at all—but carried the fear of disappointing someone, like a weight too heavy for your young shoulders.

Tell me about your father—my grandfather—whose name I know but whose voice I’ve never heard. Was he gentle with you? Was he proud of you? Did he teach you to throw a ball, to tie a knot, to be a man? Or did he teach you in absence, in silence, in the lessons you had to learn alone?

And what about your mother, whose kindness I see in your eyes? Did she wait up for you, worry when the sky grew dark and you weren’t home yet? Did she tell you that you were good enough, even when you felt like you weren’t?

I want to know what it was like to grow up with less—less comfort, less choice, maybe even less hope. And still, you made something of yourself. You built a life from the ground up, not because the world gave you the tools, but because you forged them with your own bare hands. That’s the kind of strength I never learned in books.

Tell me about the first time your heart broke. Was it a girl with eyes like summer, or was it the loss of a friend, or maybe the moment you realized your parents weren’t invincible? Did you cry, or did you bury it like so many other things, under the armor you had to wear too young?

Tell me how you found Mom. Was it love at first sight or a slow, unfolding comfort? What made you choose her, over all the others? Was it her laugh, her stubbornness, her belief in you when even you weren’t sure of yourself? And when things got hard—as they always do—what made you stay? What made you fight for her, for us?

I want to know about the nights you didn’t sleep. Not because of noise or light, but because of worry. Bills, illness, regret—the kind of invisible storms that no one else sees. You faced them all, didn’t you? And still, every morning, you woke up before the sun, brewed your coffee, and carried the weight of the world like it was just another tool in your belt.

Dad, I know now that strength isn’t loud. It doesn’t shout or boast. It shows up—day after day, quietly, faithfully. It’s in the sacrifices no one applauds, in the battles no one knows you’ve fought. You never asked for recognition, never needed to be the hero. But to me, you always were.

And the lessons—oh, the lessons. You taught me without preaching. You taught me that a firm handshake matters, that your word should mean something, that honesty isn’t always easy but always right. You taught me how to stand when it would be easier to sit, how to keep going when quitting sounded sweeter.

Now, as I write this, I realize I’ll never know all of your story. There are parts of you that you’ve buried too deep, scars that time can’t explain. But I carry them with me anyway, in the way I speak, the way I work, the way I love. Your story is written in the quiet corners of my life.

So Dad, tell me more—while there’s still time. I want to hear the story of the man behind the strength, the laughter behind the silence, the heart behind the hands. Tell me your story, not because I need to understand everything, but because I want to remember. And maybe, one day, I’ll tell your story to someone else—your grandchild, perhaps—and they’ll know that greatness can look like a man who simply refused to give up.