A silent ‘happy birthday’

Birthdays are markers of time, moments for reflection, celebration and often, humble displays of the small gestures that remind us we are seen. As a child, I basked in the simplicity of my birthdays – the cakes my mother brought, the laughter shared with friends, the warmth of family gathered around me. But as the years passed, something faded into the background – a silence that grew louder as I grew older.

My father never once said, “Happy birthday.”

It’s strange, isn’t it? We grow up believing that parents should be the first to celebrate us, that birthdays are when they pour into us all the love and pride they hold in their hearts. But at home, my father was always the silent figure – working hard, providing, yet standing on the periphery of our lives – present but distant, like a character written into the script but never given lines.

There were no birthday wishes from him, no carefully wrapped presents. It was always my mother who made the effort to mark the day, throwing small parties and buying gifts in my early years. But even that stopped when I reached elementary school. His absence of acknowledgment wasn’t something I noticed immediately; it was a gradual realization that settled in, year after year.

Could it be that he didn’t know when my birthday was? That thought stings, but I may never know for sure. My father was never the type to track sentimental moments. He left the emotional labor to my mother, stepping in only for discipline – and even then, it was often at her insistence. His hands were always busy with work, not the tender duties of fatherhood.

Yet, looking back, I realize his silence wasn’t entirely void of care. He was always there, in his own way. Every day in elementary school, he fetched me from class without fail, waiting outside the gates with quiet patience. On weekends, if I had practice, he would be my driver, shuttling me back and forth as if it were his personal mission to ensure I never missed a moment. His love wasn’t verbal – it was in the engine of our old car, in the tires that wore down from countless trips to and from school.

Have you ever wondered if silence could hold love? I often do. His silence could easily be seen as indifference, a lack of care. But I’ve come to believe that maybe he was greeting me from his heart. Maybe, somewhere deep down, beyond his stoic exterior, he celebrated my existence in his own, quiet way. Not everyone expresses love the same way. Some speak it; others show it through tireless work.

Two years ago, my father left this world with his words forever unspoken. And now, as I stare at the candles on my birthday cake, slowly melting, I can’t help but wonder – when will I hear those words from him? Will they come to me in dreams, distant echoes of a conversation we never had? Or is his silence his eternal gift to me, a space where I must learn to understand what was unsaid?

As time passes, I’ve come to realize that love, like memory, has many shapes. It can be as loud as laughter echoing through a room or as quiet as a shadow in the corner. My father’s love, though silent, was always there – stitched into the narrative of my life, waiting in the car after school, ensuring I got to every practice. In the years since his passing, I’ve learned that love doesn’t always need words to be felt. Sometimes, it reveals itself in the spaces left behind – in the echoes of footsteps, in the stillness of unspoken moments. It’s in the things we miss once they’re gone, in the quiet, in the spaces between what was said and what was done.

I know now I am not alone. So many of us walk this world with parents whose love never took the form we expected, yet it was there all along, in the shadows and the spaces between. Whether out of emotional distance, cultural norms or simply a lack of awareness, some parents don’t see the need for those small, symbolic gestures. But does that make them less of a parent? Does that silence define their love?

In the end, we must accept our parents as they are – not for the things they didn’t do, but for the things they did. My father may not have wished me a happy birthday, but he worked every day to provide for us. Perhaps, in his mind, that was enough.

Maybe that’s what growing up really means – understanding that love comes in many forms, even the silent ones. And perhaps now, as I listen to the quiet, I hear his love in ways I never could before. Maybe, just maybe, that silence is louder than any birthday greeting could ever be.

Now, as I stand at the crossroads of another year, I choose to believe that somewhere, in the great beyond, my father is finally whispering the words I longed to hear as I blew out my candles.

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William Curading Jr., 23, is from Ilocos Norte, a graduate of Mariano Marcos State University with a degree in BSE-English from the College of Teacher Education.