The Secret About A Father’s Love

One day, you’ll bury your dad.

It is a thought most of us would rather push to the back of our minds, because as long as Dad is still here, somehow we assume there will always be another phone call, another visit, another piece of unsolicited advice about something we already know how to do. We may roll our eyes when he tells us to be careful, to drive slower, to wear a jacket or to get more rest, but there is something behind all of it that we don’t always recognize while we are busy living our own lives.

There is a whole side of your dad that you probably never saw.

You saw him go to work, help pay the bills, volunteer, fix things around the house and do whatever needed doing. You saw the mistakes he made, the times he lost his patience and definitely the things you thought he could have done better.

What you didn’t see were the nights he lay awake wondering if you were going to be okay. You didn’t see every worry he carried quietly, every sacrifice he made without announcing it, or every time he put something he wanted aside because there was something you needed more. And you certainly didn’t see all the times he prayed for you when you weren’t anywhere around to hear it.

A father’s love can be a strange thing because so much of it happens behind the curtain. He can be sitting across the table from you, talking about hockey, the weather or why your lawn looks like hell, while carrying a thousand thoughts about your life that he’ll probably never tell you. He wonders if you’re happy. If you’re making good decisions. If the person you’re with is treating you right. If you’re taking care of yourself. If the world is going to be kind to you, and what he can do when it isn’t. Sometimes all he can do is hope, and sometimes that hope turns into a quiet prayer that nobody else ever hears.

And that’s the part I think we often miss about dads. They don’t want you to succeed because your success makes them look good. They want you to succeed because they genuinely want you to have a better life than they did. They want you to go further, reach higher and avoid some of the potholes they hit along the way. Your success doesn’t threaten them. It validates every early morning, every long day, every sacrifice, every worry and every time they wondered whether they were doing a good enough job.

Your dad probably gave up more than you’ll ever know, and I’m not just talking about money or material things. Sometimes he gave up time. Sometimes opportunities. Sometimes dreams of his own. But perhaps the greatest sacrifice was accepting that one day he would have to let go. A father spends years holding the bicycle seat while his child learns to ride, then eventually has to take his hand away and watch from a distance. He knows you have to find your own balance, even though every instinct in him still wants to catch you when you fall.

And yes, dads can be stubborn. Some could argue with a stop sign and then complain that the sign wasn’t listening. They have opinions, plenty of them, and sometimes they deliver those opinions with all the subtlety of a brick through a window. But there is a difference between disagreeing with your dad and disrespecting him. You don’t have to accept everything he says, and you certainly don’t have to pretend he’s always right. But when your ego starts telling you that you absolutely must win the argument, remember who you’re standing across the room from.

That man isn’t your competition. He never was.

He is one of the few people in your life who can genuinely celebrate your success without wondering what it means for him. He wants you to have the good job, the happy marriage, the healthy children, the comfortable home and the peace of mind he may have spent his own life chasing. He wants you to be okay, even when you don’t call often enough, even when you ignore his advice and even when you occasionally make him wonder where the hell he went wrong.

One day, the chair will be empty. The phone won’t ring. There won’t be another argument to have, another story you’ve heard seventeen times or another voice reminding you to be careful on the drive home. And when that day comes, you may realize that the man you sometimes thought was simply giving you a hard time was actually spending a lifetime quietly hoping the world would be good to you.

So while your dad is still here, give him a little grace. Call him. Sit with him. Tell him you love him, even if neither of you is particularly comfortable with mushy stuff. And when you disagree, remember that being right today may not be nearly as important as having one more conversation with him tomorrow.

Because one day, you’ll bury your dad.

And that’s when you may finally understand just how much of his life was spent quietly wishing for yours to be good.