Quiet Father

Dear Delyara, My father is getting older, and I don’t know how to talk to him. We were never the kind of family that said emotional things easily. Love was practical. It was driving you somewhere. Fixing something. Asking if you had eaten. But now time feels louder. I notice his hands more. The slowness in his walk. The way he repeats certain stories. And I keep thinking: one day there will be no more time for the conversations we never learned how to have. I want to tell him I know he tried. I want to tell him I see the ways he loved us, even when he didn’t know how to say it. I want to tell him I am still his child. But every time I sit near him, I say something small instead. Something safe. Something ordinary. And I hate that love can be so big, and still remain so quiet.