The Things I Never Said to My Father

The Things I Never Said to My Father

There are conversations we rehearse in our heads a hundred times but never let pass our lips. Words that sit in the back of the throat like stones, too heavy to lift, too sharp to swallow. This is for all the things I never said to my father — and probably never will.

1. I wanted you to be proud of me.

Not in the way you were when I made the varsity team or when I finally fixed the lawn mower without asking. Not for the boxes I could check off on your silent list of what makes a good man. I wanted you to be proud of the things I was too afraid to tell you I cared about. The stories I wrote. The way I cried at the end of movies. The fact that sometimes I wanted to be small and safe, not tough and stoic.

2. I was angry you never said “I love you.”

Not once. Not in words. I’ve convinced myself over the years that maybe it was there, folded into the gruff nods or the unexpected gifts of candy bars left on my desk when you thought I wasn’t looking. Maybe it was tucked inside the heavy silence during long car rides. But I wanted to hear it. Just once.

3. You scared me.

And not in the way fathers are supposed to — the authority figure who tells you when to come home and when to mow the lawn. You scared me because your moods were weather systems I could never predict. Thunder one day, clear skies the next. I learned to read your face like a storm warning. It made me good at reading people, but bad at trusting them.

4. I wish you had asked me about my life.

Not about my grades or whether I’d checked the oil in the car. About the things that kept me up at night. About the first time my heart broke, or the time I thought I might be falling in love. About my favorite song, or what I wanted to be when I stopped pretending I wanted to follow in your footsteps.

5. I hated that we only talked during commercials.

Between innings. In the pause after a touchdown. I wanted conversations that didn’t hinge on sports scores or the weather. I wanted to know what scared you, what you dreamed about, what you regretted. But you lived in small talk. And I lived in the spaces between it.

6. I kept your old watch.

The one you stopped wearing when the band broke. You left it in the top drawer of your dresser, and when we cleaned out your things, I took it. I tell myself it’s because I liked the way it looked, but really it’s because it was something you carried close to your skin. A tangible, physical thing. And it still ticks.

7. I’m sorry I waited so long to forgive you.

For the years you didn’t show up the way I needed you to. For the things you did say and the ones you didn’t. I know now you were working with the tools you were given, that you were raised by a man even colder than you. I see now how some cycles are nearly impossible to break.

8. You were softer when you were sick.

The sharp edges dulled, the silences a little less loaded. It made me ache in ways I wasn’t prepared for. To see the man I spent my childhood tiptoeing around become small, fragile, human. I wish we could’ve met in that middle space sooner.

9. I never told you I respected you.

Not for your job or your ability to fix anything with duct tape and determination. But for the way you kept going, even when life cracked you open. For the way you made sure there was food on the table when the factory cut hours. For the way you carried pain without complaint. I saw it. Even if I pretended I didn’t.

10. I loved you.

In the complicated, messy, aching way sons love their fathers. In the way that feels both natural and impossible. I loved you in the silences, in the arguments, in the times we barely spoke. I loved you when you failed me and when you tried. I love you still.

And maybe somewhere, in some way, you knew.

Maybe you still do.