There are pains that have no name. Pains that seep in slowly, like moisture in the walls: invisible at first, but over time they corrode everything. Pains that don’t scream, but drain you. You sit at a table, try to read, to work, to live… but something inside you is shut down, absent, distant.
It is the pain of someone who has been separated from what he loves most. Of someone who watches his children grow up from afar. Of someone who wonders every night if they still remember his voice, if they still wait for that caress, if that bond – once thought indestructible – can survive silence and distance.
It is a pain that no one cares about. It doesn’t make headlines. It inspires no campaigns. It is an uncomfortable pain, one that society prefers to ignore. Because admitting it would mean recognizing that fathers can suffer too, that men too can be victims. And for many, that is still unacceptable.
So you learn to hide it. To smile when someone asks “how are you?”, to talk about the weather or work. But inside you carry a void that doesn’t fill. A pain that doesn’t ease. And sometimes, when no one sees, you cry. Because you miss your son. You miss your daughter. You miss that life you had built and that has now been ripped away.
No justice can give you back the days you’ve lost. But there is dignity. The dignity of not giving up. Of continuing to love, even from afar. Of never stopping being a father, even when you’re treated like a stranger. Because true love needs no permission. It asks for no authorization. It exists. It resists. And it remains.