Submission 251

Dear Dad,

Dear Dad,

It’s been years since you left, but not a single day has gone by without your absence being felt. Since 2013, life has moved on around me, but there’s a part of me that’s been frozen in time—stuck in that moment when everything changed.

There are so many things I wish I could have said to you. So many questions I’ll never get to ask. I carry them with me, like a weight I can’t set down. Why, Dad? What were you feeling? What was too heavy to carry, that you thought you had to carry it alone?

I replay memories, trying to spot signs I missed. I wonder if I could’ve said something, done something, anything, to make you stay. But the truth is, those answers are locked away with you, and that silence is one of the hardest parts of this grief.

Your absence echoes. It echoes in the milestones you’ve missed, in the conversations I’ll never get to have with you, in the parts of myself I wish you could see. Sometimes I’m angry. Sometimes I’m just broken. And sometimes, I just miss you in a way that words can’t describe.

I want you to know that despite the pain, I still love you. Despite the confusion and the questions, I remember the parts of you that made me feel safe and loved. I remember your laugh. I remember moments when you were whole. I hold on to those.

Grief doesn’t get smaller; I just grow around it. But there are days it still swallows me whole. And if somehow you can hear me—if there’s any part of you that lingers—I hope you know I’m trying. I’m trying to heal, trying to live a life that would make you proud, even if I don’t always know how.

You may not be here, but I carry you. And I’ll keep carrying you, through the love, the pain, the questions, and everything in between.

Love always,
Emilia x