19 Years Without Dad:

For the Man Only I Understood

My strong, loving, and misunderstood Dad, thank you for everything

and your life, your love, your sacrifices will never be forgotten

19 years gone, but forever held close

Dad, 19 years, it is hard to believe that nearly two decades have passed, since I last heard your voice, since I last felt the weight of your protective presence in my life, since I lost the man who gave me half my soul, as the number itself feels so surreal, how can someone so monumental, be gone for that long? 19 years since the world lost the chance, to truly know you, 19 years since I became the keeper of your real story, and your truth, the only person, who really knew the colossal heart, that beat beneath your strong exterior, and in those 19 years, I have been carrying your memory like a solitary torch in a universe, that never fully saw your scintillating light

Dad, I have been biting my tongue when others reduced you to their narrow understanding for the last 19 years, because no one sees you the way I do, to the world, you were not an easy man to understand, you were the stern patriarch, the unyielding force, but to me, only ever to me, you were the silent poet, the warrior with trembling hands, the love that burned too fiercely to be spoken, and you were an island in a sea of shallow judgments, because I saw the whole man, the misunderstood one, the one who loved us not with grand gestures but with a loyalty that never wavered, even though you did not show it in ways, that people had noticed or applauded

Dad, to many people, you were a mystery, they called you hard, you were the softest soul I have ever known, as your tenderness reserved for midnight worries when no one else was watching, they called you stubborn, you were the most devoted man alive, as your resolve carved from the granite of responsibility, they called you difficult, you were protecting what you loved, they called you complicated, you were the simplest kind of miracle, a gentleman who loved without conditions, sacrificed without fanfare, and stood unshaken in your belief, and they called you too much, you were everything to those of us, who were lucky enough to be loved by you deeply

Dad, your love was not the soft kind, gentle like a breeze, it was solid like a mountain, your love was not written in easy words, it was coded in the way, you buried too many your own dreams, so ours could take root, your love did not sparkle, it dug in, that bore the weight of being the villain in every story if it meant we were safe, your love did not mutter, it built with your bare hands, brick by brick, you erected a fortress around us, and created a life for us, that showed it every single day, and your love did not come with explanations, it came with actions, that still echo across decades, as you loved us with an unapologetic intensity, and you protected us tirelessly

Dad, some souls are only fully seen by one, what a pleasure to swim in your depths, some souls are written in a rare dialect, being chosen to read it is both gift and grief, but oh, what an honour to be your native tongue, being your translator is my reward and my heartbreak, being your witness is my sacred, lonely privilege, because while I was grateful to know you so intimately, my heart ached that others did not bother to learn the language of you, while others waited for pretty words, that never came, I learned to read the poetry of your deeds, and in those 19 years without you, it has been both my pride and my pain to be the sole custodian of your true legacy

Dad, blood is thicker than water but understanding is the thickest thing of all, our bond was a secret country with its own borders, 19 years later, you still live on in all the ways, people do not immediately see, they say I have your stubbornness, I love too fiercely to apologise for it, I swallow my tears to be someone’s shelter, I choose integrity over ease, I stand my ground on what matters, I protect what is mine with the same quiet ferocity, but that is who you were, and I still see you in my resilience, in my refusal to quit when life gets heavy, in my unwillingness to explain myself, in my inability to tolerate injustice, in my way of caring, not pretty, but permanent

Dad, you might be annoyed, I make a fuss, on your 19 years anniversary, but tough, today, the world will hear the real you, even if only through my words, for this moment, you loved us, in the most powerful way, no matter how unappreciated you felt, defending a man, who never asked for it, since your actions were your only manifesto, but, what a sacred trust, to know the velvet heart beat beneath the armour, the real memorial, is in the life you built for us, the one I still fight for your battles, the world still does not get you, but I do, I always did as I knew your love was perfect in all its imperfect glory, and I always will tell your truth, my truth, until my last breath