Who Am I Without His Voice?

Who Am I Without His Voice?

By [Abdul Hadi]

I never realized how loud my father’s voice was until it was gone.

Not loud in volume—he rarely shouted—but in weight. It filled rooms even when he was silent. His presence was like gravity. Everything in our home, in our lives, orbited around it.

And now? Silence sits in the house like smoke after a fire.

The morning after the funeral, I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea he never taught me how to make. His old chair was across from me, pulled slightly back like he’d just stepped away.

I stared at the steam rising from the cup and whispered out loud:

“Who am I now?”

The words felt foreign in my mouth, like I was borrowing someone else’s voice.

Growing up, his words were law.

“Don’t talk back.”

“Be strong.”

“Men don’t cry in front of others.”

“Do better.”

“Not good enough.”

I shaped my whole identity around his expectations. I studied the way he walked, the way he cut meat with a knife, the way he folded his shirts. I feared his disappointment more than I feared any failure.

At some point, I stopped asking myself what I wanted.

What I felt.

What I feared.

Because his voice filled every inch of me.

He wasn’t unkind—not intentionally. He believed he was making me into a man. A solid one. One who could withstand the world.

But what he actually made was a mask. One I wore so long I forgot I was wearing it.

The first time I tried to express emotion—to tell him I was overwhelmed in university—he didn’t even look up from his newspaper. He just said,

“Figure it out. That’s what men do.”

So I did.

Or at least I pretended to.

He died of a heart attack in his workshop. Alone. Just like he lived.

I got the call from one of his old friends. Said he collapsed beside the old shelves he built the year I was born. Said he had wood shavings on his shirt and a screwdriver still in hand.

That image has haunted me ever since. Not because it was dramatic. But because it was so... him. He worked until the end. Alone. Wordless.

Cleaning out his belongings, I found a worn-out cassette player with a few old tapes. Mostly music. But on one, he had recorded something. I pressed play, not knowing what to expect.

His voice crackled through the static. Still commanding. Still cold.

"If you’re hearing this, then I’m probably gone. I don’t know why I made this. I never said the right things to your face, so maybe this is easier. I’m proud of you, even if I didn’t say it. You always tried. That’s more than I can say for myself."

"I wasn’t raised to speak love. I was raised to work. To endure. And I passed that onto you. I just hope it didn’t break you."

I stopped the tape.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t scream.

I just sat there, stunned that in the only time he ever tried to speak openly, he still couldn’t say the words that mattered most.

Now, weeks later, I walk around this house and hear my father’s voice everywhere.

Not literally.

But in the way I criticize myself for small mistakes.

In how I clench my jaw when I feel overwhelmed.

In the silence I fall into when someone asks how I’m doing.

He’s still here, in echoes. Not as a ghost. As habits.

But I’ve started speaking differently.

I talk to my reflection. I write in a journal—bad poetry and raw thoughts.

And last week, when my younger cousin cried over his college rejection, I didn’t tell him to "toughen up."

I said, “That sucks. I’m sorry. Want to talk about it?”

He looked at me like I handed him something he’d never received before.

Maybe I had.

I don’t hate my father.

I understand now: he gave me what he had. Tools. Rules. Silence.

But not a voice.

That part, I have to build myself. From scratch.

I’ll still hear his voice sometimes—in doubt, in discipline, in fear.

But now, there’s room for my own.

Room for gentleness.

For questions without immediate answers.

For truths said out loud.

I still sit at that kitchen table sometimes, across from his empty chair.

But now I speak.

To him. To myself. To the silence.

Because I know now:

Who I am without his voice...

is someone finally learning to use his own.