I was eight years old when my mum left our home in London. She walked out to the corner of the street, hailed a black cab, and she never came back. My brother was only five.
After that day, everything in our house shifted. Dad started doing things hed never done beforewaking up earlier to cook breakfast, learning how to use the washing machine, ironing our school uniforms, clumsily brushing our hair before we left for school. I watched him muddle through measuring the oats wrong, burning the meals, forgetting to separate whites from colours in the wash. Still, he never let us go without. Hed come home exhausted from work and sit down to go through our homework, sign our diaries, and pack our lunches for the next day.
My mum never came to visit, not once. Dad never brought another woman home. He never introduced anyone as his partner. We knew he had evenings out, that sometimes he came back late, but his personal life never touched the comfort of our walls. It was just me and my brother in our small flat. I never heard him say hed fallen in love again. His routine became work, home, cook, laundry, bedand again.
On weekends, hed take us to Hyde Park or down by the Thames. Sometimes, hed bring us to the shopping centre, even if we only wandered, gazing into shops we couldnt afford. He learned to plait my hair, sew missing buttons onto school shirts, put together packed lunches. When there were school parties and we needed costumes, he fashioned them from cardboard and bits of old fabric. He never sighed. He never said, “Thats not my job.”
A year ago, my dad passed away. It happened so swiftly, there wasn’t time for long goodbyes. When we sorted through his things, I found old notebookslists of household expenses, important dates, reminders like “pay the school trip,” “buy football boots,” “take the girl to the doctor.” No love letters, no photos with someone new, no traces of a romantic lifeonly proof of a man who lived for his children.
Since hes gone, I keep wrestling with one question: was he happy? My mum left to pursue her happiness. Dad stayed, as though he let go of his own. He never made a new family. Never had a home with a partner. Never again was someones priorityexcept us.
Now I recognise that I had a remarkable father. But I understand, too, that he was a man who chose solitude so his children wouldnt feel alone. And the weight of that settles in my chest. Because now, with him gone, I wonder if he ever received the love he truly deserved.
