The day my father died, the house felt smaller.
People filled it. Voices filled it. Prayers filled it.
But something solid was missing.
I stood beside his body and tried to match the image in front of me with the man I knew. The man who woke before sunrise for decades, the man who never bought himself new shoes but made sure I had the best ones he could afford.
He was strict. Everyone knew that.
What they didn't see was how he checked my exam results twice when he thought no one was looking. Or how he pretended not to notice when I came home late, but stayed awake anyway.
He never said, "I love you."
He said, "Did you eat?"
He said, "Study harder."
He said, "Don't waste your time."
That was his language.
I'm thirty-nine now. I have a stable job. A woman who waits for me to open up more than I know how to. A life that looks decent from the outside.
But standing there, watching incense smoke rise toward a ceiling that suddenly felt too close, I realized something heavier than grief.
I don't know if he knew that I understood him.
And I don't know if I ever told him thank you in a way that mattered.
After everyone left, I found his old brown jacket hanging behind the door.
The same one.
I was nineteen. First year of college. My friends were loud, confident, wearing branded clothes their parents could afford without thinking twice. He came to visit without telling me. Worn-out shoes. Faded jacket. A plastic bag in his hand with snacks from home.
I felt something I hate admitting even now—embarrassment.
"Next time, just call me," I said sharply. "And maybe… don't wear this when you come. My friends are around."
He didn't respond immediately. He just looked at me for a second. His eyes didn't change much. His face didn't either.
"That's fine," he said. "I just came to see you."
We didn't talk long that day. I told him I was busy.
I didn't see his eyes fill up. I was too concerned about who might have noticed.
Years later, I understood.
The jacket still smells faintly of him. Soap. Dust. A hint of tobacco he thought we didn't know about.
I sit on the edge of his bed and hold it in my hands. There are so many things I managed to say in my life. Presentations. Apologies to girlfriends. Promises I didn't keep.
But the simplest sentence stayed stuck in my throat: I'm sorry.
He never heard it.
And now he never will.
I fold the jacket carefully. Place it back behind the door.
Smoke curls in the air. Faint, fleeting.
Life moves on.
But some things… stay with you forever.
A Quiet Thought
If he could have spoken now, he might have said:
I was hard on you because the world was harder on me.
I did not know how to be soft. No one was soft with me.
Every overtime shift, every argument I swallowed, every worn-out shirt I never replaced—I did it for you.
I wanted you to stand in places I could not.
I wanted you to speak in rooms where my voice was never heard.
Maybe I pushed too much.
Maybe I mistook silence for strength.
But everything I did, even the mistakes, came from love.
I hope you know that.
And as I watch the smoke rise, I realize that some lessons are learned too late.
That life doesn't give second chances to say the words you always meant to. That love can be loud in silence, and regret can echo long after the person is gone.