A poem
I know that you have heard my name from voices close and words that came. Stories told when I was gone, repeated softly, carried on. And maybe now the man you see has grown from what was said of me. There are things I wish you knew, pieces of a past I’d share with you. Not to change the way you feel, just to let you know what I believe was real. I only fear that knowing why might hurt you more than wondering why. There were doors I could not reach, words I never got to speak. And part of me still wants to say what really happened in those days. To tell you things I tried to do, and all the ways I thought of you. I do not want to take away the people who have shaped your days. I only wish that somewhere through all you have heard, you somehow knew that I was never just a name, or only someone else’s blame. I was a father far away, still thinking of you every day. And if one day you want to know the parts of life I never showed, I will only tell you what I knew, and leave the rest of it with you. Because whatever truth may be, whatever you decide of me, there is one thing no words can change. I loved you then. I love you now. And through the silence that remains, I always will.