The Purpose My Father Left With Me

When my father died, I didn’t just lose my dad. I lost a mystery I had been trying to understand my entire life. His silence, sadness, laughter at silly things, and sense of responsibility made sense in pieces, but not in full. And the way he left? Suicide cracked open everything.

Grief has a way of peeling back the illusion. You think you’re going to mourn quietly, keep your head down, get through it like everyone else does, but then you realize: nothing is what you thought. People you trusted become distant. The ones who should’ve been your support system turn on you. And suddenly, your grief becomes controversial.

That’s what happened to me. All I did was ask questions.

All I wanted was to understand what happened to my dad.

Why did he choose to leave?

Was he suffering in silence?

Was there more to the story than what we were told?

And for daring not to accept the script, I was cast as the problem.

I became the villain in someone else’s fantasy of control.

I was shut out by people unwilling to see what I was beginning to see.

But now, I’m grateful. Because in that silence, in that isolation, I found something no one else could’ve given me: my father’s purpose.

Not his job. Not his habits.

His soul’s unfinished mission.

He handed it to me without words, and I didn’t realize I was holding it until I was already carrying it forward. He passed me the fire. He trusted me with the truth, and he never got to speak. I think he knew I would be the one to walk through the wreckage and not just survive, but transform it.

And now I understand it wasn’t just about healing myself.

It was about healing the generational trauma.

My father came from generations of suppressed pain. Men who were told to toughen up, shut up, and get over it. Women who held the family together while falling apart in silence. Trauma disguised as tradition. Survival mistaken for love. That legacy ends with me.

I’m the one who saw it.

There were consequences for what I saw clearly.

I’m the one who stopped running from it.

And that is no small thing.

This wasn’t the role I asked for; it was the one I was built for.

Not because I’m stronger than the rest, but because I refused to lie to myself.

Now I speak what others won’t.

Now I create tools for others to heal because I know what it’s like to feel alone in grief, gaslit by others, and unsure if you’re the only one who feels like something is off.

I’m not resentful anymore. I don’t need apologies.

Because I know my purpose.

Recently, I was reminded of it in a moment I thought was random. I meant to text someone else, but I messaged someone by accident. That one mistake led to a conversation we probably never would’ve had otherwise a conversation that opened a door for them to begin seeing what I’ve come to understand not in an aggressive way, not in a “here’s what you need to know” way, but in a deeply compassionate, soul-guided way.

After that text, I got in my car and turned on the radio. The first song that played was “Adam’s Song” by Blink-182, a song about a young person lost in the pain of depression and suicide. I heard my dad immediately. I said, “I hear you.”

And then came the rest.

Song after song, message after message, all tied to him and this moment. As I drove past Count’s Cars, his favorite place, during his last visit, it hit me.

He wasn’t just showing up to say hello.

He was reminding me why I’m here.

He was saying, “Help. They need you now. I trust you with this, too.”

That’s what this is.

It’s not about fixing anyone.

It’s not about proving a point.

It’s about being a torchbearer for truth, healing, and knowing that I do, even if no one else gets it.

My father’s purpose lives in me now.

It shows up in my writing.

In my journals.

In my forgiveness.

In the peace I had to earn without applause.

And I will keep carrying it.

Not because I have to.

But because I choose to.

Every day.