He stands in rooms that echo now
Where laughter used to live so easily
His hands unsure of what to hold
When the one he reached for is no longer there
Because he is a father who lost a child
He carries it quietly, this grief
Not always in tears, but in the way
He pauses at doors, at memories, at moments
That used to belong to two
Because he is a father who lost a child
There are things he doesn’t say out loud
Questions that sit heavy in his chest
And a love that has nowhere to land
Except in the silence he learns to live with
Because he is a father who lost a child
He remembers the weight of small hands in his
The sound of a voice calling his name
And some days that memory is comfort
And some days it breaks him all over again
Because he is a father who lost a child
But still, he wakes, he breathes, he carries on
Not because the pain is gone
But because love asks him to keep going
Even when the world feels impossibly changed
Because he is a father who lost a child
And though the world may not always see it
There is strength in the way he stays
A quiet, enduring kind of love
That not even loss can take away
Because he is, and always will be, a father who lost a child