depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments,
when they aren't trying to teach us."
But what if I didn't have a father?
What then?
What will I become?
Will I gather lessons from the wind,
in the way it bends the trees but never breaks them?
Will I learn from the silence,
how absence can echo louder than words?
Perhaps I will build myself from stories,
from the ghosts of men I’ve never met,
from kindnesses offered by strangers,
from wisdom hidden in the cracks of the world.
I believe that what we become
depends on what we choose to carry—
even when no hands were there
to pass it down.