He never got to come home—
or maybe he did,
but only as ash on a mantle,
a whisper in empty halls.

His laughter never found its way back,
his smile never crossed that threshold—
just the echo of memories
haunting every corner.

Photos line the walls,
one, two, three, four—
Father, Mother, Daughters—
but the count shifted somewhere along the way,
and we became three,
learning how to hold a space
he no longer filled.

We still set his side at the table,
his chair pulled close,
his side untouched,
clothes folded like time stopped in the closet,
everything still his—
a silent claim on a house that hasn’t been his
for eight years.

He left that home,
and came back in glass—
seven years ago.

So why does the house still belong to him?
Is it how we cope?
Or is it easier
than facing the empty other side?

Happy birthday, they say,
smiles soft and candles bright—
the noise of cake and laughter
trying to fill the empty space.

But sometimes,
all I hear is the silence of you not being here.

I laugh, and in that sound,
I hear a shadow of your voice,
a ghost in the corners of my smile.
Photos catch me smiling like you—
a flicker of what once was—
but the truth is you’re not here.
You won’t ever be.

I’ve waited years for the ache to ease,
for the weight to lift,
but grief doesn’t fade like that.
It hides in quiet moments,
sneaks in between the jokes,
and sits at the table with me,
uninvited but always present.

I watch my friends post their Father’s Day love,
and I’m happy for them—truly.
But a part of me just wishes
I could have had that too.

No one talks about how hard it is
to pretend moving on means forgetting.
My thoughts aren’t always of you,
but I think of you every day—
wishing you were here to watch me blow out the candles,
to laugh through the bad Christmas movies,
to open presents and be present.

Why don’t we say how hard it is
to be happy on a ‘happy birthday,’
when part of you is still somewhere else—
somewhere I can’t reach?

Hi Daddy,

I’ve grown since you left—
seven years stretching long and wide,
not forever, but enough
to wonder if I’m who you hoped I’d be.

When you were here,
I was just a kid tangled in playground fights,
learning how to make friends
and find my place in the noisy world.

Now I’m almost done with high school,
with a year left to cross that stage alone—
watching friends walk with both parents smiling,
while I hold onto one shadow of you.

Sometimes a bad joke cracks the silence,
and I swear I hear your laugh,
or a song plays and I imagine you nodding along,
or a movie scene flashes,
and I wish you could’ve seen it too.

I wonder how you’d feel about my friends,
how you’d look at my boyfriends—
would you like them?
Would they be good enough for your little girl?

Mostly, I ask if you’re proud—
if I’m the girl you dreamed I’d become,
if I made you smile from wherever you are.

I miss you, Daddy.
I wonder if this ache
will ever ease enough
to say your name
without the hurt.

But I carry you,
always,
in the spaces between my steps,
in every ‘I love you’
I wish I could say one more time.

I think he said I love you—
or maybe just keep swimming,
those steady words,
like ripples in the dark water
when storms came roaring close.

But sometimes I wish
I could remember exactly,
because silence filled the spaces after—
no words left, no breath left,
just the ache of what wasn’t said.

I wish it had been I’m sorry,
or it’s okay,
something that would’ve let me hold him
without the sting of goodbye
carved into every quiet moment.

He didn’t choose to leave—
not really—
but I wonder if a sudden end
would’ve been easier to carry,
than the slow, cruel drift away,
bedridden and distant,
lost inside a fading light.

I said I love you to Daddy,
soft as a prayer,
but now I can’t say it again
and have him hear—
that final echo stays trapped,
a song that never finds its rest.

So I carry those words—
half spoken, half imagined—
a fragile thread in the silence,
tied to the heart he left behind.

I. Diagnosis (Age 6)

They said it like a fact.

Like Tuesday.

Like weather.

Your dad has cancer.
The word didn’t echo then—

not yet.

I drew flowers on napkins
 in the waiting room,

smiling at the nurse with the tired eyes.

Hope was a coloring book—

not a question.
I watched grown-ups fold in half

when they thought I wasn’t looking.

He got better,
then worse,

then “stable,”

which meant
 we stopped talking about the end

but never really forgot it.

II. Hallway (Age 10)

It wasn’t loud,

but something inside me screamed
 when I saw the hallway.
White light.

Buzzing lights.

No music,

just the squeak
 of my sparkly pink shoes

on waxed floors that had seen
 too much
 of what was about to happen to me.
I didn’t cry.

I knew.

The scent of death doesn’t hide,

it seeps—

through fabric,

through prayers,

through the last place he laid his head.
He walked in and never walked out.
Hope,
that traitor,

never said goodbye.
Just packed up and left

like a parent late on rent.
I thought we’d take him home
 with warm blankets and soup.

But we took him home in an urn.
I was ten.

He was gone.

And a part of me
 was buried with him

without a name.

III. Echo (Now)

I still have the shoes.

Tucked in a box like a secret.

The glitter’s faded,

but they still know how to squeak
 when the memory creaks open.
I don’t talk about it much.

The numb is quieter now—

more like static
 than silence.
Sometimes I smell his cologne
 in a stranger’s coat
and forget where I am.
Grief lives in the corners—

folds my shirts wrong,

burns my toast,

waits for me
 at the bottom of old picture frames.
I don’t cry easily.

I don’t break loudly.

But I remember.
And that’s the kind of hollow
 they don’t warn you about—

the kind that doesn't echo

because there’s no one left 
to call back.