Letter to My Father on His Day

You never asked for a day. That's the most father thing about you. You didn't want a card or a tie or a breakfast in bed that tasted like effort and love in equal parts. You wanted the game on. You wanted the house quiet enough to hear the announcers and loud enough to know your family was in it. Father's Day is a holiday for the men who don't need holidays. The ones who show up at 6 a.m. to a job that doesn't love them back and come home to a house that doesn't know how close they came to not being able to keep it. You taught me by not teaching. You taught me work by working. You taught me patience by waiting for me to figure it out when we both knew you could have done it in half the time. You were not a man of words. You were a man of showing up. Of oil-stained hands and early mornings and the particular silence of a man who says I love you by checking the tires before a long drive. I didn't understand this at sixteen. I understand it now. So here's your card. It's a poem. You'll probably say: you didn't have to. And I'll say: I know. That's the whole point. Happy Father's Day, Dad. The game is on. The house is loud. You did it. We're all still in it.