I grew up believing my father died when I was eight years old. There was no funeral, no grave, no folded suit in the closet that smelled like him. Just a quiet afternoon when my mother sat me down, looked at me with a kind of practiced calm, and said, “He’s gone now, Stephanie. Let him go.” That was the whole explanation. No details. No stories. Just an ending.
So I accepted it. Children do that when adults speak with certainty. When teachers asked, I said he was dead. When classmates compared tragedies like trading cards, I nodded and repeated the same word. Dead. Simple. Final. My mother never kept photographs of him in the house. There were no anniversary dates, no accidental mentions. She said remembering him hurt too much, and I learned early that silence was safer than curiosity.
He didn’t sweep in with grand gestures or try to force affection. He didn’t tell me bedtime stories about bravery or promise to be a replacement for anyone. He simply showed up. He drove me to school when my mother worked late. He waited in plastic chairs outside doctors’ offices. He fixed things before they broke and handed me small amounts of cash without comment when he knew I needed it. I fought him for years out of principle, because admitting I needed him felt like betraying a man I barely remembered.
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