Dad

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Start with the song, then come back through the story and official lyrics.

Where This Song Came From

Dad came from a relationship defined more by distance than presence. My father lived in the same town, but we did not really talk, and he did not make much effort to see me.

As a kid, you do not always have language for that kind of absence. You mostly wonder what is wrong with you. You keep hoping for the moment when your father notices you, chooses you, or says he is proud.

Every few years our paths would cross, and hope would come back before disappearing again. Then he died, and the possibility of a different ending disappeared with him.

Becoming a father changed the question. When I looked at my own child and felt how natural it was to love her, I had to ask why I had not felt like a gift to him.

The answer did not come from him. It came from realizing I could become what I had needed. I could break the cycle instead of handing it forward.

What I Was Feeling

I carried anger, grief, regret, and a strange kind of mourning for something I never truly had. It is difficult to grieve a person and the relationship that could have existed at the same time.

Writing the song did not erase the pain. It gave the pain a direction. Instead of only asking why he was not the father I needed, I could recognize that I had become that father for my own children.

Breaking Down the Lyrics

If she's such a gift, why wasn't I one is the question at the center of the song. It is the child's wound speaking through the adult.

The man you never became, that man is me turns the mirror around. It stops waiting for his approval and measures my life by the father I chose to be.

I broke the cycle, I changed the end is not a victory over him. It is a promise to my children.

The Line I Hope Stays With You

The love you did not receive can become the love you refuse to withhold.

Official Lyrics

Full lyrics below