WALLS
You came with no speech.
Just your toolbox, your steady hands,
and that quiet sense of purpose
you’ve always worn.
You didn’t ask what I needed.
You just showed up
and started to build.
Knowing exactly what I wanted.
Carpet first, cut to the edges just right,
tucked into corners the way you once tried
to tuck your own regrets
where no one would see them.
Then the wall. You measured twice,
cut straight, while your hands worked without pause.
This was your way of saying all the things
you never knew how to say out loud.
Dad… I heard them.
Every single one.
You built a wall for me,
but in truth, that was the moment
the last one between us fell.
It was in that surprise moment where I
saw my new office and something
changed within me.
I don’t know, Dad. Something deep happened.
Some realization that I don’t have words for…
Where I saw a vision of you as a boy without a father.
And in that vision through all your pain,
you became a man that IS what he never had.
I don’t care that we never figured out how to talk.
I don’t need a different childhood.
I don’t need an apology for the years we lost to silence
or tension or trying to be men who didn’t flinch.
Because you’re here now. And this wall,
this beautiful, solid, quiet wall,
says more than any sentence ever could.
I forgive you, Dad and I love you.
Fully. Freely and Forever.
For the things you know and the things you don’t.
For the ways you tried,
and the times you thought you failed.
But let me say it plainly,
you did not fail me.
Not then and not now.
You gave me something no one else ever could:
a foundation to stand, and a room of my own,
and the knowledge that love, real love,
doesn’t always come dressed in perfect words.
Sometimes it looks like a man
on his knees in a quiet room,
driving nails into wood
so his son can have peace.
When your last day comes, if a doubt creeps in.
If you wonder whether you left anything good behind,
think of that wall. And think of this room.
Think of me, standing inside it,
with a heart you helped rebuild
just by showing up.
You can rest easy, Dad.
You are forgiven.
You are seen.
You are deeply, deeply loved.
And you were never…
never…
a failure to me.
This is the first thing I wrote in the place you built for me. I love it and I love you. Happy Father’s Day.
