This is a story of friend in my town. It was sad to hear it.
I tell here in first person. Hopefully you enjoy it even though it has some sadness.
The Silent afther the mother left
The day we buried my mom, my dad didn’t show up. I wasn’t entirely surprised, but it still hurt. They’d been divorced for fifteen years, and in all that time, they never exchanged a single word. Their separation was bitter. I was seventeen when he walked out of the house. From that moment on, each of them built a separate life. My mom never moved on, and even though I know he was with other women, he never made any effort to keep a relationship with us.
When my mom got sick, I looked for him. I wrote to him, told him she was hospitalized, that she wasn’t doing well. He never replied. My brother tried calling him, but he’d changed his number years ago. We didn’t even know if he still lived in the same city. Still, deep down, I held on to a sliver of hope that when she passed, he’d appear—even just to say goodbye, to show a minimum of respect for the woman he’d once shared his life with.
On the day of the funeral, the room was filled with flowers and people who loved her: neighbors, relatives, childhood friends—they all came. Everyone except him. Every time someone walked in, I turned to look at the door, hoping to see him standing there. Hours went by, but he never came. Not a call, not a message—nothing. It was as if we didn’t even exist.
Two days later, a cousin told me she’d seen him at a downtown restaurant, having lunch with a woman. I didn’t want to believe it. I asked her to show me the photo she’d taken by chance, and there he was—calm, laughing, while I was picking out flowers for my mom’s grave. I didn’t know whether to feel anger or sorrow. It was as if he lived in another world—one where my mother had never existed.
Three months have passed since she went to be with God, and he still hasn’t shown up. Not a word, not a condolence. Sometimes I think he does it out of pride, or maybe fear. But the truth is, his silence hurts me more than his absence. Because it’s not just that he didn’t come to the funeral—it’s that he wasn’t there for me, his daughter, in the hardest moment of my life.
Every Sunday I go to the cemetery. I bring her flowers and sit for a while, talking to myself, hoping she can hear me.