I grew up with hospitals before I grew up with playgrounds.

‎Kidney disease became part of my childhood long before I was old enough to understand what it meant. Endless medications, recurring urinary tract infections, doctor’s appointments, and nights spent wondering why my body never seemed to function well. While other children wished for toys, I wished for another month without getting sick.

‎My papa wasn’t there to witness most of it.

He had to leave the country, carrying nothing but the hope that working overseas would give me the life my illness had stolen. Every hour he worked, every sacrifice he made, was for me. Though he was thousands of miles away, I never questioned his love. To me, he was a superhero. The kind of father who never let me feel that we lacked anything, even when I now realize he was the one going without.

‎Then he came home.

‎Not because he wanted to, but because his body could no longer keep up. Severe vertigo took away the man who had spent years standing on his own feet. The father I remembered slowly disappeared before my eyes. His laughter became rare. His patience grew thin. The house that once felt warm became filled with shouting, slammed doors, and silence that lingered long after every argument ended.

‎I could never understand why he had changed.

That change, changed me too. I didn’t notice it at first. It happened quietly, little by little, until the warmth we once shared no longer felt the same. I started answering him with short replies, avoiding conversations that used to come so naturally. Whenever he tried to joke around or laugh about the little things, I barely looked up. I met his smiles with cold stares, convincing myself that I no longer cared.

‎The bond we had built throughout my childhood slowly faded into something distant. We still lived under the same roof, but it no longer felt like we were living in each other’s lives. Instead of trying to understand the pain that had changed him, I let my disappointment harden my heart. Looking back now, I realize that while his illness transformed the man he once was, my inability to understand him transformed me too. We both became strangers, standing only a few steps apart, yet separated by silence neither of us knew how to break.

‎There were days I caught myself staring at him, wondering where my father had gone. Sometimes, I wanted to ask, Who are you? The man standing before me looked nothing like the one who used to tell me that bad days always passed. Nothing like the father who wrapped me in his arms whenever I cried and promised that everything would work itself out because I had him.

‎I mourned someone who was still alive.

‎Every day, I shut myself inside my room. It became my hiding place, where anxiety echoed louder than the arguments outside. I convinced myself that my life would have been different if things had stayed the way they were. I blamed him for the heaviness that settled over our home. I blamed him for becoming someone I no longer recognized.

‎It took me years to understand that he was grieving too.

‎He wasn’t angry because he stopped loving us. He was angry because life had taken away the only thing he knew how to do—provide. The man who once crossed oceans for his family could no longer trust his own balance. Every dream he carried home with him was replaced by frustration, helplessness, and the quiet fear of becoming a burden.

‎I was so consumed by the father I had lost that I never saw the man who was hurting in front of me.

‎He never raised his hands against me.

‎But somewhere between my disappointment and his suffering, we both lost each other.

‎And sometimes, I wonder if the hardest kind of grief isn’t losing someone to death.

‎It’s realizing you stopped seeing them long before they were gone.