Things Left Unsaid…

Dear Earthlings,

It’s me again – your dearly departed Dad, sending dispatches from the afterlife, where the tae is still weak, the clouds squeak when you walk on them and the WiFi is so bad it makes dial-up look like fiber optic.

I thought I’d drop in today to talk about the stuff you didn’t say.

Now don’t get me wrong, I get it. Life’s busy. You meant to call. You thought about writing. You told yourself you’d say it next time. But here’s a little spoiler alert from someone who’s officially out of ‘next times’: they run out.

Up here, we’ve got a whole department called The What I Should Have Said Bureau. It’s down the hall from The Department of Lost Eyeglasses and The Center for Regrettable Haircuts. It’s run by a couple of retired angels who used to work customer service at the DMV, so you can imagine the vibe.

This place is packed. Filing cabinets stuffed to the brim with:

• ‘I love you, but I never said it’.
• ‘I’m sorry for what I did’.
• ‘I’m proud of you but couldn’t choke the words out’.
• ‘You were right about that thing in 1997, and I was too stubborn to admit it’.

And let me tell you, it’s a heart-breaker, all these words still marked UNDELIVERED.

I walked through the place the other day and found a whole drawer labeled ‘Messages for My Kids I Forgot to Say’. There was one from me in there. A note saying how much I appreciated your stubborn streak – yeah, even when it drove me nuts. That you were the one person I could count on to tell me the truth, even when I didn’t want to hear it.

Never told you that. Thought I had more time.

So, here’s the deal: no one and I mean no one, gets to the other side wishing they’d sent one less kind word, one less apology or one less ‘You meant the world to me‘. What you do regret are the things you swallowed, the calls you skipped and the moments you left hanging like half-finished sentences.

And for the record? I notice.
Even now.
Especially now.

I see the missed calls. The messages you didn’t send. The fights that fizzled into awkward silences. And the people like Fannie McFox and Bully – who decided that dodging responsibility was easier than doing the right thing. It’s funny how some folks can manage to post smiling family photos for the world while leaving whole relationships buried in the backyard.

You don’t have to be like them.

Say the thing.
Say it when it’s awkward.
Say it when you’re mad.
Say it when you don’t know how it’ll land.

Because those words? They matter. More than the inheritance, more than the gossip after the funeral and definitely more than the carefully curated public image that some people (looking at you, Fannie McFox) spend their whole lives trying to protect.

Say you’re proud. Say you’re sorry. Say you miss them. Say you love them.

Don’t wait for a funeral to say what should be said at brunch. Or over a beer. Or when you’re standing in the driveway, both pretending you’re not about to cry.

Anyway – I gotta run. There’s a poker game in the back room and rumor has it Elvis cheats. I’m going to catch him this time. Oh, and I found Bully’s empathy in the Lost and Found. Still sealed in the original packaging. Might mail it to him anonymously. Or not.

Until next time,
-Dad