By Adesuwa Ewoigbokhan

There is a kind of loneliness that comes with being a father that people rarely talk about. It is possible to have children, provide for them, watch them grow, and still find yourself wondering when the distance between you and them became so wide. Some fathers discover this too late.

For many men, fatherhood is first understood as responsibility to pay the bills, put food on the table, pay school fees, protect the family, and make sacrifices. A father may spend years believing that providing is his loudest way of saying, “I love you.” And sometimes, nobody tells him that children need to hear the words too.

There are fathers who worked so hard to give their children a better life that they missed the life happening in front of them. They missed school plays, birthdays, conversations after school, family outings and those seemingly ordinary evenings when a child simply wanted Daddy to sit beside them. At the time, these moments may have looked insignificant, but years later, they can become the memories a father wishes he could buy back.
Then the children grow up, they become adults with their own homes, marriages, careers and children. They call less frequently, visits become occasional, conversations become polite rather than intimate. The father who once seemed too busy for them may suddenly have plenty of time, but the children have learned to live without needing him. That is where regret can become painful.
He may ask himself: “Where did I go wrong?” Sometimes the answer is not that he did not love his children, he loved them deeply. He simply expressed that love in the language of provision, discipline and sacrifice, while his children were waiting for affection, attention and presence.

The good news is that regret does not always have to be the final chapter. If your children are still young, be present now, put down the phone, listen to their stories, hug them. Attend the events that matter to them, even when they seem small.

And if they are already grown, do not allow pride to prevent you from reaching out. A simple, honest conversation can open a door that has been closed for years.

Money can provide comfort, property can provide security but when the house becomes quiet, what most fathers hope to hear is not the sound of their possessions. It is the sound of children who still feel at home with them.