DEAR DAD

Dear Dad,
I am writing to tell you that I have grown up.
I know that now you will think "it is normal that you have grown up", but I am talking to you about growing up without you. So I start again:
Dear Dad,
I wanted to tell you that I grew up, even without you. Growing up without you is not growing like others grow up, growing up without you means sweating, it means watching a sunset and being sad, it means feeling stupid because at night you talk to yourself, because you hope someone hears you. You are my someone, but hoping hurts too much when I beg you to come back. Growing up without you means loving different, it means loving wrong. Yes dad, that's right. The absence of your love in my life has turned my heart into a boulder. And I'm not saying it just for effect. I haven't been able to love since I lost you, because watching you go was so painful that I no longer have the courage to let myself go. I don't want to relive a pain like that.
I wanted to tell you that I grew up, but that I wanted to see myself grow up with you. And you? Have you ever thought of me? Did you feel like kissing my forehead? To touch my hands? To sit at the table on Sunday? You should try the chicken cacciatore that mom makes ... It's really special. We eat a lot of it and then we compete to see who finishes first, so we take what is left. We often fight over this and if you only knew how much we laugh at each other. Maybe if you were there there would still be no chicken left in the pan, maybe the dishes would be right […] I wanted to tell you that I grew up, even without you. And I would like to show you how much my face has changed. I look a lot like you, the square jaw, the huge smile and the straight teeth. Besides, I like wine, like you.
I grew up but I still can't tell about us, I can't admit that I know what I'm missing. I can't say it out loud. The other day my mother and I had a fight, she said I don't open up to her, that I don't trust her because I never cry. He said "talk to me, tell me it still hurts too much." But I didn't answer her. I didn't even have the strength to look at her, but I felt her dead eyes on me. "I'm sorry you came across it." And he wept. In front of us he always tries to resist, but punctually cries a lot. She really can't do it. She is not afraid to cry, she is not ashamed to be seen. You were his great love, and his great pain. And now if he smiles, he smiles differently. This to God I will never forgive him.
… You really didn't have to go away.
I always listen to your favourite song to feel you with me every day.