Father’s Day is one of those days that feels simple until it isn’t.

On paper, it should be straightforward. You call your dad. You send a message. Maybe you buy a card that says something emotionally generic because apparently men are only allowed to be described as “legend,” “mate,” or “BBQ king” once a year.

You write something like, “Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Hope you have a great day. Love you.”

And technically, that is enough.

But sometimes the simple things carry a lot more than they look like they do.

This year, Father’s Day feels a little heavier.

Not because my dad was a bad dad. He wasn’t. That feels important to say early, before this becomes one of those essays where everyone starts quietly diagnosing the family dynamic from the couch.

My dad is not the villain of this story.

He is just my dad.

A man from a different time, from a different emotional operating system, with a different understanding of closeness. A man who provided, showed up in the ways he knew how, and probably loved more than he always knew how to express.

And I love him.

I just wish we had been closer.

And part of that distance is mine.

That is hard to admit, but it is true.

For a lot of years, I was hiding who I was. Not in the dramatic movie-scene way where everything is a secret and someone finds a diary under the bed. More in the quiet, everyday way. Editing details. Avoiding certain conversations. Keeping parts of myself separate. Building a version of closeness that still had an emergency exit.

Because before I came out, I did not know how it would go.

I hoped it would be okay. I wanted to believe it would be okay. But hope is not the same as safety, and for a long time I built my life around the possibility that it might not be.

So I created distance.

A safety net.

A buffer.

A way to protect myself in case the worst happened.

And the thing about walls is that they can work. They can keep you safe. They can give you somewhere to stand when you are scared. They can help you survive the uncertainty of not knowing whether being fully known will cost you something.

But once they are built, they are not always easy to knock down.

Even when the threat does not arrive.

Even when the coming out does not go as badly as you feared.

Even when people do love you.

Even when part of you knows you could step closer.

The body remembers why the wall went up in the first place.

So some of the distance between my dad and me is not because he was a bad dad. He wasn’t. And it is not because I did not love him. I did.

It is because I spent years preparing for the possibility that being honest might change everything, and in doing that, I changed some things myself.

I protected myself.

And I lost some closeness in the process.

That is one of the quieter griefs of coming out that I do not think we talk about enough. Sometimes it is not the rejection that hurts. Sometimes it is the distance you created before you even knew if rejection was coming.

And then, years later, you are left trying to work out how to become closer to someone who never fully knew how far away you had learned to stand.

I wish we had talked more.

Not just about practical things. Not just the weather, the footy, the car, the house, the kind of conversation men have when feelings are circling the room but nobody wants to make direct eye contact with them.

I wish I knew more of his stories.

I wish he knew more of mine.

I wish we had found a way to be more comfortable with each other before life started quietly taking pieces of that possibility away.

Because that is what dementia does.

It does not just take memory. It takes chances.

It takes the future conversations you assumed you might still have one day. It takes the version of someone you thought would always be there, even if the relationship was imperfect, complicated, distant, or unfinished.

It makes you realise there may not be some grand emotional catch-up waiting in the wings.

There may not be a perfect afternoon where everyone suddenly becomes fluent in saying what they mean.

There may not be a moment where he fully understands who I am now, the life I have built, the person I became, the things I have survived, the parts of myself I had to grow into without him really seeing the whole process.

And that is nobody’s fault, exactly.

It is just sad.

The relationship we do have is slowly changing. Slowly disappearing in small ways before the big ways arrive. He is still here, but not always in the same way. Still Dad, but sometimes further away. Still familiar, but with little gaps appearing where certainty used to be.

And dementia is cruel like that because it makes you grieve someone while they are still in front of you.

You can be sitting with them, talking to them, watching them laugh, watching them eat, watching them exist as the person you know, and still feel the loss creeping around the edges.

Then you feel guilty for feeling it, because they are still here.

Then you feel guilty for not feeling enough, because life keeps going and you still have emails, groceries, gym, rent, work, and a deeply unserious need for coffee.

Grief is very inconvenient that way.

It refuses to schedule itself properly.

I think part of what hurts around Father’s Day is the idea of what fatherhood is supposed to look like. All the posts. The lunches. The old photos. The captions about best mates and role models and “couldn’t ask for a better dad.”

And I am happy for those people.

Mostly.

I mean, some of the captions are a lot. We do not need eight paragraphs about a man whose main personality trait appears to be fishing.

But I understand it.

People are celebrating the relationship they have.

And maybe what I am feeling is the relationship I wish we had.

Not instead of loving the one that exists. Alongside it.

Because the truth is, I will probably never be a father myself.

Not in the obvious, expected, traditional way. Not in the easy assumed way that straight people get to treat as a default setting until they opt out.

And yes, gay people can become parents. Of course we can. There are many ways to build a family. Adoption, surrogacy, co-parenting, fostering, donor arrangements, chosen structures, all of it.

But realistically, I do not know if fatherhood is something that will happen for me.

And there is a strange little grief in that too.

Not necessarily because I am walking around desperate to buy tiny shoes and argue with a toddler about vegetables. Let’s be serious. I can barely emotionally regulate myself when someone stands in front of the lift doors.

But there is a part of me that wonders who I would have been as a dad.

Whether I would have been good at it.

Whether I would have been softer.

Whether I would have known how to say the things I sometimes wish had been said to me.

Whether I would have been able to build the kind of closeness I wanted, not because my dad failed, but because each generation hopes it can carry the love a little differently.

Maybe that is what a lot of us want, whether we become parents or not.

Not to prove our parents wrong.

Not to rewrite history with ourselves as the hero.

But to take what we were given, understand what was missing, and try to become someone who loves with a little more language.

A little more openness.

A little more presence.

A little less emotional constipation disguised as strength.

Which, frankly, could be a national men’s health initiative.

Because my dad did love me. I know that.

Even if it was not always in the shape I wanted.

Even if we did not have the kind of relationship where everything was said out loud.

Even if there were gaps.

There was love there.

There is love there.

It just lives in a family where love has often been practical before it has been expressive. It shows up as lifts, repairs, quiet favours, checking if the car is okay, making sure things are handled, sitting in the same room without necessarily needing to name the feeling.

That kind of love counts.

It does.

I just wish, sometimes, that we had more words around it.

And now the words feel harder to reach.

Not just for him, but for me too.

Because what do you say when time has started narrowing the options?

Do you say, “I wish we were closer”?

Do you say, “I wish you knew me better”?

Do you say, “I am scared of losing the parts of you I never properly got to hold”?

Do you say, “I love you,” and hope that is enough because maybe it is the only sentence that can carry the rest?

Maybe that is what Father’s Day becomes this year.

Not the perfect card.

Not the perfect post.

Not the perfect relationship.

Just the sentence that still fits.

I love you.

Even with the distance.

Even with the missed chances.

Even with the walls I built before I knew whether I would need them.

Even with the things we did not know how to say.

Even as dementia changes what is possible.

Even as the relationship I have slowly becomes something I have to remember for both of us.

There is still love.

Complicated love, maybe.

Quiet love.

Practical love.

The kind of love that does not always photograph well or fit neatly into a Father’s Day caption.

But love.

And maybe that is enough to honour.

Not because it fixes the sadness.

Not because it makes the grief tidy.

Not because it gives me the closeness I wish we had.

But because it is true.

My dad is still my dad.

I am still his son.

And even if we never became the kind of father and son who could say everything out loud, I can still say this.

I wish we had been closer.

I wish we had more time.

I wish dementia was not slowly taking pieces of the relationship we did have, before I had fully made peace with the relationship we didn’t.

I wish the walls had come down sooner.

And I love him.

All of that can be true.

That might be the most honest Father’s Day message I have.