A FATHER’S HEART

Did you see this father and son embrace on TV last week?

Electric arena. Cameras everywhere. People cheering.

But I did not see the crowd.
I saw the hug.

A grown son in his father’s arms. A father holding him tight, beaming with pride.
No speech. No performance. Just two souls saying what words often cannot.

I was still.
Felt happy for them.

Then…I felt an old, familiar yearning.
What did that feel like, I wondered?

To have your father’s arms be a place where you can let go.
A place where your body can say, “It feels good.”

And your father’s body answers…I know. I see you. I am here.

The image of that hug opened a time passage I seldom enter.

“If you’re a young man and you’re not being admired by an older man, you’re hurting.”
–Robert Moore, Iron John: A Book about Men

Many years ago, I hugged my father as we said goodbye.

I was leaving Iran for graduate studies in the US.
For only a few years.
To become a college professor upon my return.
Life was all planned.

Then…

Came the revolution.
Then the war.
The country descended into darkness.

The kind of upheaval that turns a temporary trip into a lifetime.

Just like that…I became an immigrant.
Just like that…my family became people I loved from a distance.

No ordinary hugs.
No celebrations, gatherings.
No walking into the house and finding my father in his chair, reading, quiet, and familiar.

There were letters.
There were phone calls.
There was love, of course.

But love had to travel through thin wires, folded paper, long delays.
Words became too small for what my heart was carrying and craving.

When I think of my father, I do not think of speeches.
He was not a speech man.

I remember his weight.
Not his body.
His weight.
The worry.
The work.

The pressure of being a father in a world that asked men to endure, not to feel.
He loved by providing.

By rising early.
By going to work.
By staying steady when life was not.

He was awkward in tenderness.
Just like many fathers of his generation.

They knew duty.
They knew sacrifice.
They knew how to fix things, pay for things, protect things, carry things.

But no one had taught them how to say out loud, “I am worried.”
I am lonely.
I need comfort too.

So much went unsaid.
And still, so much was there.

I know that now.
I didn’t know it back then.

As a boy, I wanted more.

More words.
More warmth.
A hand on my shoulder.
Questions about my feelings, not only my grades.

I wanted him to know…me.

And maybe, more than I understood, I wanted him to let me know him.

I wanted to ask him, “Baba Jaan” (means ‘dear dad’ in Farsi), “Why do you look so sad?”
Where did you put your worries?
When the house was quiet, did you ever wonder where your own life, your dreams, had gone?

Did you miss that dashing young man you once were, who used to cruise around on his Harley-Davidson?
Did you ever want someone to take your hand and say, you don’t have to be strong every minute?

Baba Jaan passed on many years ago.

I now recognize him in myself.

The early morning mind.
The silence that arrives when something hurts.
The habit of looking composed while bracing inside.

This is what many fathers do…

They carry what they cannot say.
They turn grief into work.
Fear into control.
Longing into silence.
Love into service.

Then they hope…someone…understands the translation.
And take notice.

My Heart Thanks You

On this Father’s Day, we thank fathers for what they do. Every day.

Thank you for the roof.
The full refrigerator.
The ride.
The tuition.
The long hours.
The invisible labor.

But maybe there is another thank you.

Thank you for what you carried when no one asked if it was heavy.
Thank you for loving in the only language you were given.
Thank you for staying, even when staying cost you parts of yourself.

This does not erase the hurt.

It does not make every father safe, present, or tender.
Some wounds are real.
Some silences shape a child for decades.

But being a father myself now has taught me something difficult and honest.

A father can love you and still not know how to reach you.
A father can give his best and still leave you hungry.

A father can be devoted and wounded at the same time.

Baba Jaan did not get to meet my son face-to-face.

He never said Salaam to his grandchild in the same room.
He never held my son’s small body in his grandfatherly arms.

I feel that void.

I wish he had seen his family continue.
He would have been pleased.

I wish my son had felt the presence of the man whose life still lives in mine, and in him.

My vow is to give my son what I needed more of growing up.
I do it for both Baba Jaan and me.

I embrace my son often; he is a young man now.
I say the words.
I express love and admiration in my words and in holding him close.

I show up.
Pay attention.
Listen more.
Fix less.
Fuss less.

Not perfectly.
But more consciously.

Maybe this is how we honor our fathers.

Not by pretending they were perfect.
Not by staying angry forever.
Not by repeating the same silence and calling it loyalty.

Instead…

We receive what they could give.
We grieve what they could not.

Baba Jaan…it took me decades, but I see you more clearly now.

I see the man behind the role.
Your tenderness under the duty.

The love that did not always know how to speak, but kept showing up in your work clothes.
You worked.
You worried.
You carried.
You did what you knew.

Now…it’s my turn.
Your son.

Proud; angry no more.
Still missing you.
Still learning from you.
Still having conversations with your memory.

What you could not say, I am learning to say.
What you had to carry, I am learning to put down.

And every time I love my son out loud, some part of your love finds its way home.

To my Baba Jaan:
I see you.
I miss you.
I love you.

The ones who hug easily.
The ones who don’t.
The ones who speak love out loud.
The ones who love in silence.
The fathers who carried too much.
The fathers we are still trying to understand.

And to the fathers in us, still waiting to become more whole.

A Father’s Day invitation:

Call him if you can. Remember him if you cannot.
And say one true thing love has been waiting to say.

………………..

I help leaders look beneath their silence, irritability, and heaviness to meet the unanswered needs.
Beyond coping. To resolution.

Book a 30min Leader Clarity Session.

You will understand exactly how to feel better, live better, lead better.

Dr. Ardeshir Mehran
Learn more: Therapy  &  Testimonials
A psychologist, depression, anxiety, and trauma expert, and leadership coach. Many see depression as an immovable cause. Ardeshir busts this myth and focuses attention on the real culprit: unfulfilled lives and the denial of our inner truth. Depression can be reliably healed.

BONUS:
Listen to or watch my recent podcast, “An Opera Singer Shares How to Reclaim Your Personal Power, Style, and Presence.”
My guest is Adria Firestone, the Reinvention Architect™ coach. We discuss how to design a life that reflects who you are becoming, not who you used to be. Learn about voice as the foundation of your identity.