Hey Dad
Happy late Father's Day. This one's a message for all you do.
Hey Dad.
I need you to actually hear this one. The whole way through. Not the half-listening nod you give when the game’s on in the background.
Because I’m not sure I ever really saw it while it was happening.
Kids are kids.
We take the roof and the rides and the full fridge like it’s all just weather, the natural state of the world that was always going to be there. We don’t see the person holding it up. Not until we’re older. Not until we’re tired the same way you must have been tired, and we finally do the math on what it cost you.
I’ve done some of the math now.
And I don’t think you hear this enough. I don’t think any of you do. The dads who carry the whole thing quietly and figure somebody must have noticed.
I noticed.
Thank you.
For the stuff you never mentioned
You carried a lot more than you ever let on.
The bills you paid before any of us knew they were due. The nights you couldn’t sleep and never said why. The jobs you didn’t love, that you went back to anyway, because we needed back-to-school shoes and groceries and you wanted to take us down to Florida every Christmas. 5am mornings to get downtown and somehow being able to make it back to catch my hockey game that night.
You made it look easy but it wasn’t and I know that now.
You took the weight and you didn’t make it our weight. That’s the part I keep coming back to. A kid has no idea how much is being held just out of frame so they can keep being a kid.
I do now. And I don’t know how you did it without complaining.
For the same stories, every campfire
You have, conservatively, 4 stories.
I’ve heard each of them a hundred times. The one about the car. The one that may or may not have happened the way you tell it. The one that gets a little bigger and filled with a few more white lies every summer.
Same setup. Same pause before the good part. Same look on your face right before the ending, like you’re about to get away with something.
The story was always just the excuse. What you really wanted was everyone around the fire a little longer, nobody reaching for their phone, the night stretched out as far as it would go. You taught me that without saying a word about it.
For showing up
No matter what was going on, you were there.
The games. The drives. The thing I was nervous about that you somehow knew I was nervous about. You showed up so consistently that I started to take it for granted, which is maybe the highest compliment a kid can pay a parent.
I never once wondered if you’d come.
That’s a rare thing. Showing up, over and over, for years, with nothing asked in return, is one of the hardest things a person can do.
You made it your whole personality.
You taught me what it means to work hard. You taught me what it means to be there for the people you love. And you taught both the only way that actually sticks. By doing it, every single day, while I watched.
I don’t say it enough.
So I’m saying it now. Thank you. You’re the best one I know.
The call we keep meaning to make
That’s the end of the message. Here’s the part that isn’t.
Most of us are walking around with a version of that letter unsent.
We mean to call. We mean to say the thing. And we figure there’s time, because there’s always been time, because Dad has always just been there the way the kitchen table has always been there.
So we talk about the game instead. The weather. The noise in the garage.
The thank you sits in our chest, fully formed, and we keep deciding today isn’t the day to be that sincere. Tomorrow. Sunday. His birthday, maybe.
Here’s what I keep learning the slow way. The men who carried us are not made of stone, no matter how much they act like it. They’re getting older while we’re busy assuming they’re permanent.
The perfect words aren’t coming. Neither is the perfect day. Pick up the phone while it still rings on the other end.
He’ll probably make a joke to cut the tension. Let him. Say it anyway.
Almost Something is for anyone who’s been meaning to make that call. Go make it.
I couldn't love you any more.