A Letter to My Children
My dear ones, There are things I need to say, things that have lived quiet for too long. When you were growing up, I wanted to be strong for you — the kind of father who could keep the world from hurting you the way it hurt me. I thought discipline meant safety, that structure would protect you from the chaos I’d known. But sometimes, in trying to give you strength, I gave you fear instead. I never meant to. The habits from my own past — the strict training, the tension that never left my shoulders, the reflexes built from years of stress — followed me home like ghosts. And in my worst moments, I let those ghosts speak louder than my love. I told myself I was teaching discipline, but sometimes I was only teaching silence. I thought I was showing you how to be strong, but what you saw was a man still wrestling with his own pain. I know now that my tone, my anger, my distance at times — they left marks I never intended. For that, I am sorry. Truly. I can’t undo what’s been done, but I ca...