My Father Loved Through Routine

Dear Delyara, For years I thought my father was emotionally absent. Maybe sometimes he was. But that wasn’t the whole truth. Now I see how much of his love came through routine. Through picking us up. Fixing things. Checking locks. Asking if we’d eaten. Working without complaining. Remembering practical details nobody else noticed. He did not always know how to sit in emotion, but he knew how to carry responsibility like devotion. I needed other things too. That is true. But I can finally see his love more clearly now. It just wasn’t poetic.