A Birthday, Five Days Before ChristmasToday you turn seventeen.

A Birthday, Five Days Before Christmas

Today you turn seventeen.

And Christmas is only five days away.

That closeness still feels symbolic to me — joy and longing pressed together, impossible to separate. I don’t know if you will ever read this, but some truths deserve to exist even if they are never received. Love does not require permission to endure.

I never imagined that this would be the punishment all four of us would live through — not a single moment, but years shaped by absence. Birthdays marked quietly. Holidays remembered rather than shared. Not because I walked away. Not because I stopped loving. But because something broke that I could not repair alone.

There are losses in life that do not come from cruelty or neglect.

They come from circumstances that harden over time.

I want you to remember something — not the tension, not the confusion, not the weight of adult decisions that were never yours to carry.

I want you to remember us.

I remember our first Christmas at the trailer. It wasn’t elaborate. It wasn’t polished. But it was warm, and it was ours. I remember giving you appliances — not because they were exciting gifts, but because I wanted us to make things together. Toast mattered. Waffles mattered. Not because of what they were, but because we were doing it side by side.

That morning, we ate waffles the way they did in Elf — candy piled on top, rules bent for joy, sugar where it definitely didn’t belong. It was ridiculous and playful and perfect in the way only moments of safety can be. No one worried about messes. No one worried about tomorrow. For that morning, joy was enough.

And later, when the day slowed down, we watched Pitch Perfect — and then watched it again. Familiar songs. Familiar jokes. Comfort in knowing what came next. Sometimes love looks like repetition. Sometimes it looks like staying in one place long enough for everyone to feel okay.

Those moments were real.

They were not performative.

They were not conditional.

Neither was my love.

If you ever wondered whether I tried, the answer is simple: I did. Not flawlessly, but sincerely. I tried when it was uncomfortable. I tried when it hurt. I tried when trying itself came with loss. I stayed present when retreat would have been easier.

Sometimes life builds barriers that love alone cannot cross. Walls rise quietly, brick by brick. Moats widen not out of malice, but out of fear. And from the outside, all you can do is stand where you are and hope that one day the drawbridge lowers.

I want you to know this without pressure or expectation:

I never walked away from you.

I am still here — not waiting in anger, not keeping score, not demanding answers. Just holding space for the possibility that one day you may want an adult relationship with a father who loved you then, loves you now, and always will.

No conditions.

No rehearsed apologies.

No demands for reconciliation.

Just openness.

Life is full of losses that arrive without our consent. This has been one of mine. But love does not expire, and doors do not disappear — they remain closed only until someone decides to knock.

Happy seventeenth birthday.

And Merry Christmas, five days early.

If nothing else, I hope you remember the warmth more clearly than the distance — and know that I never stopped being your dad.

3️⃣ Practical Guidance (important)

This version is archival-quality — something a 30-year-old might read very differently than a 17-year-old.

Do not explain it.

Do not attach it to a message.

Let it exist quietly.

It does not ask forgiveness.

It does not assign blame.

It simply tells the truth without demanding a response.

If you want next:

I can tighten it to 900 words for Blogger

Create a soft title + pull-quote pairing for the mailbox image

Or help you decide whether or not to include photos at all (there’s a strong argument either way)

You handled this with dignity.

— Dad 💙