The Things I Never Said to My Father

The Things I Never Said to My Father

A letter never sent.

You were always there—but never quite present.

Your presence filled the house like smoke: visible, lingering, but hard to breathe in. You sat in your armchair, every evening, unmoving except for the flicker of the remote in your hand. The glow of the television painted your face in pale light, but I don’t remember you smiling much.

You were not a cruel man, not outwardly. You didn't yell. You didn’t hit. But you didn’t speak, either. You didn’t reach. You didn’t ask. You didn’t see me—not in the way I wanted to be seen.

There were words in my chest, like birds trapped in a chimney, flapping and frantic. But every time I opened my mouth, the silence in the room would swallow them whole. You had built a kingdom of quiet, and I was just another silent subject.

The first time I saw you cry, I was twelve. I had woken up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and found you hunched over the kitchen table. There was an old photo album open in front of you—pages filled with people I didn’t know. You were crying, not loudly, but in a way that shook your whole body like a storm passing through. I stood there in the hallway, frozen. I wanted to go to you. I wanted to ask who those people were. I wanted to sit with you in that storm.

But I went back to bed.

That night taught me that even fathers bleed—but only in the dark.

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I Wanted to Be Enough

I brought you things—grades, awards, accomplishments. Like offerings to a silent god. I left them on the table and waited for your approval like it was sunlight I could grow under.

But you only nodded. That small gesture, over time, came to feel like both a gift and an insult. I needed more. I needed words. I needed your voice—not just your presence.

When I tried to write my first story, I left it on your desk. You never mentioned it. Maybe you didn’t read it. Maybe you did and didn’t know what to say. But your silence screamed.

So I learned to stop offering.

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The Things You Never Said Either

Now that I'm older, I try to imagine your side of things.

I’ve asked Mom, cousins, anyone who knew you better than I did. I piece your past together like a crime scene. I know you lost your father at sixteen. That your hands were calloused by seventeen. That you worked two jobs and never went to college. That the world never gave you softness, so you didn’t know how to give it either.

You never got to be a child, so maybe that’s why you didn’t know what to do with one. Especially a sensitive one like me.

I know now that silence was your shield. But to me, it always felt like a wall.

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The Letter I Never Sent

I wrote you a letter once. After you were diagnosed.

It started like this:

> “Dad,

There’s a lot I wish we’d said. But maybe I’ll start with what’s hardest:

I’m scared. Of losing you. Of losing the chance to understand you.

I want to know what scared you when you were my age. I want to know what made you laugh. Who broke your heart. Who you wanted to be before life told you otherwise.”

I never gave it to you.

Instead, I folded it and placed it in the back of my journal, like so many other things I didn’t say.

You died three months later.

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Grief Speaks the Loudest

I thought your funeral would be loud. That everyone would speak, tell stories, remember your laughter. But it was quiet. Almost eerily fitting. I sat there wondering if anyone else ever really knew you. If maybe we all carried different pieces of the same shadow.

After everyone left, I stayed behind. I sat by your grave and finally said all the things I never could. My voice cracked, but it felt good—strange, but good. I spoke into the silence, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like it was winning.

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I Am Not You

I have a son now. He’s six. He asks a thousand questions a day. He hugs without warning. He cries when he’s frustrated. He tells me about his dreams in full, messy detail.

And I listen.

Every single time.

Not because I always know what to say—but because I know what it feels like when no one does.

Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll become you. That I’ll go quiet. That life will harden me too.

But then I remember your silence—and how loud it was. How it echoed through decades.

So I speak. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when I don’t have the words. I speak.

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I Still Love You

This is the sentence I’ve rehearsed the most in my life.

I love you. I do.

Not because you were perfect. Not because you gave me everything I needed. But because you tried—in your own silent way. Because I’ve learned that love isn’t always loud. That sometimes, love looks like keeping the lights on. Fixing what’s broken. Coming home every night.

I still carry you, you know. In my silence. In my fear. But also in my strength. In my resilience. In my determination to break the cycle.

This is my voice now.

This is my letter to you.

This is everything I never said—

finally said.