You were never a man of many words and maybe that’s where I learned my silence.
Growing up, I mistook your quiet for distance, your tiredness for indifference. I didn’t understand that love can live in the things left unsaid in the way you fixed things without being asked, or how you always checked if I got home safe but never said why.
You weren’t perfect. Sometimes your temper scared me, sometimes your expectations felt like walls I could never climb.
But time softens everything. Now, when I think of you, I don’t feel fear. I feel gratitude I never said out loud.
💌 Unsent Messages
1. I used to wish you’d tell me you were proud of me. Now I realize you already did, just not with words.
2. You always asked if I’d eaten, never if I was okay. I think that was your way of asking both.
3. I didn’t see your love back then because it didn’t look like the kind I saw in movies. It looked like hard work, silence, and showing up.
4. I know now that you were doing your best with the tools you were given — even if some of them hurt.
5. I used to be angry that you didn’t know how to talk to me. Now I just wish I’d tried harder to listen.
6. I saw you aging before I was ready to understand that time is unfair — you spent so much of yours making sure I’d have more of mine.
7. You taught me to be strong, even when it meant I couldn’t show my pain. I’m still learning to unlearn that.
8. I wish I had hugged you more. I wish I hadn’t waited until it felt too late.
9. There were things I wanted to ask you, but I was too proud. I hope you knew anyway.
10. If I could tell you one thing, it would be this: I know you loved me — even when you didn’t say it, I always felt it.
🌙 Closing Thoughts
Fathers rarely get to be soft.
They carry love like a burden: heavy, quiet and constant. You built a life I could stand on, even when it cost you your peace.
I used to think we were strangers living under the same roof. Now I understand we were just two people learning different languages of love.
So this is my translation:
Thank you for every unspoken word, every tired smile, every quiet act of care.
You taught me that love doesn’t always need to be said — sometimes, it’s enough that it was given.