Letter to my father, as a father

I used to think you were the wall.

Solid. Unmoving. There, whether I liked it or not.
A man I pushed against, measured myself against, resented at times without fully understanding why.

I thought your silence meant distance.
I thought your restraint meant lack.
I thought if I ever became a father, I would do it differently.

And now I am. And I see it.

Not all at once. Not cleanly.
But in fragments...usually when I’m tired, or when she won’t stop crying, or when I’ve given everything I have that day and there’s still more required.

I see how much of fatherhood happens in the invisible.

In holding your tone when it wants to rise.
In staying when you’d rather disappear for a moment.
In carrying weight no one names, because naming it would make it heavier for everyone else.

I see how easy it would be to be misunderstood.

How the outside only sees outcomes, never the internal negotiations.
Never the restraint. Never the calculations. Never the moments where you choose to absorb instead of react.

I didn’t see that in you. Or maybe I saw it and didn’t have the eyes for it yet.

I remember thinking you were hard. Now I understand hardness was probably the cost of staying stable.

I remember thinking you were distant. Now I understand distance can be a form of protection, so the storm in you doesn’t spill into the house.

I remember wanting more from you...more words. More softness. More something I couldn’t even define.

Now I understand that sometimes a man gives everything he has…and it just doesn’t look like what the child expected.

I don’t write this to say you were perfect.

You weren’t. I’m not either. I already see the places where I fall short. But I see you now as a man, not just as my father.

A man who had to make choices with limited tools.
A man who carried pressures I never asked about.
A man who probably doubted himself more than he ever showed.

And still showed up.

That’s the part I understand now.

Showing up is the work.

Not the perfect words.
Not the perfect presence.
Just being there, again and again, even when you’re empty.

I don’t know if I’ll get it right with her.

Some days I already feel like I’m failing.
Some days I feel strong. Most days it’s somewhere in between.

But I know this: if she ever looks back at me the way I used to look at you, I hope one day she has this same realisation. That what looked incomplete…was often just a man doing his best under weight she couldn’t yet see.

I understand you now.

Not completely.
But enough to let go of the version of you I built in my head.

Enough to replace it with something more real.

A man.

My father.

And now, in some quiet way, a reference point.