Lyrics

For years,
“Dad”
One word.
was enough.
One relationship.
One complicated history.

Then I grew older
and discovered
that fathers are also men.
Men with childhoods.
Mistakes.
Fears.
Regrets.

Dreams that worked.
Dreams that did not.

My mother helped me
look again.
Not through denial.
Through another lens.

Not by forcing forgiveness.
By reminding me
that a person
can contain more
than one story.

I started noticing
things in him
that had somehow
found their way into me.

The stubbornness.
The determination.
The way I can hold
an idea until somebody
brings better evidence.

I recognized him
inside myself.

Instead of becoming
a frightening discovery,
the resemblance became
a bridge.

I told him.
Something changed.

He became
more than my father.
He became my friend.

The person I call
when life presents
a question with no obvious answer.

He tells me stories
about mistakes
he wishes I could avoid.

I listen differently now.
Not because he knows
everything.
Because he has already
paid for some lessons
I have not yet encountered.

That is one of the quiet gifts
of getting older:
you begin to see
your parents
as people.

Not just the people
who raised you.
People who were once young.
People who guessed.
People who got things wrong.
People who kept going.

My father calls
in the morning.

Then again at night.

And I sometimes catch myself
smiling at the phone
before I answer.

There is something beautiful
about discovering
your father twice.

First as a child,
then as an adult.
The second discovery
is deeper.

Because there is something
beautiful about being
old enough to recognise
the person inside
the title.

He is my father.

But he is also a man
who has lived a life
before I understood him.

A man still learning.
Still loving.
Still trying.

And I am grateful
I stayed long enough
to meet him.