Things My Father Never Said

He never told me he loved me.

Not once. Not when I was a child falling off a bike. Not when I got straight A's in school. Not even when I stood awkwardly in my cap and gown, searching the crowd for a sign he was proud of me.

My friends' fathers gave them hugs, high-fives, and speeches about chasing dreams. Mine handed me the car keys and said, "Try not to scratch it."

But here's the thing about silence:

It’s not always empty.

Sometimes it's just love, held in a language no one taught him how to speak.

My father was a quiet man.

Not cold — just... quiet.

He spoke with actions. Fixed things. Paid bills. Changed tires.

He woke up before sunrise every day for work and came home with dirt under his nails and tired eyes.

He always brought me the pink doughnut — never asked what my favorite was. Just remembered.

On Sundays, he'd wash my car. No explanation. No comment.

Just him, outside with a bucket and a sponge, humming to a radio station stuck in the '80s.

When I was 14, I overheard him arguing with my mother in the kitchen.

She was saying something like, “You never tell her how you feel.”

And he replied, “Why do I have to say it when she lives in everything I do?”

At the time, I rolled my eyes.

Now I think about that sentence at least once a week.

He didn't say "I love you" when I went off to college.

He said, “Oil's full, tires are new. Don’t let them overcharge you.”

He didn’t say it when my first boyfriend broke my heart.

He sat beside me, handed me a bag of chips, and turned on the game.

He didn’t say it when he dropped me off at the airport for my new job in another city.

He just said, “Text when you land.”

When I was 26, I called home crying after losing that job. I expected him to say something like, "Toughen up" — the way he always had.

Instead, there was silence. And then:

"Come home. We'll figure it out."

And I realized —

That was his way of saying I love you.

He died last winter.

Heart attack. Sudden.

One moment he was fixing the kitchen sink, the next, he was gone.

At the funeral, people came up to me with stories.

“Your dad once fixed my fence in the snow.”

“Your dad paid for a single mom’s groceries and never told anyone.”

“Your dad sat with my brother in the hospital all night after his crash.”

All things I never knew.

All the ways he said I love you — not just to me, but to the world.

I used to resent the silence.

Now I treasure it.

Because in that silence lived all the things he couldn’t say — the protection, the pride, the quiet devotion.

Now when I visit home, I still find him in the details:

A set of tools lined up just so.

The smell of engine grease in the garage.

A pack of pink doughnuts on the counter.

I’ve learned that not everyone says “I love you” with words.

Some people say it with full gas tanks.

With fixed doorknobs.

With early mornings and tired hands.

With doughnuts.

And if you're lucky

You learn to listen to the love between the lines.

this the end of my story