# My First Hero

Every little girl believes her father can outrun monsters.

Mine could.

Or at least, that's what I believed.

Whenever thunder shook the windows, I would run to his room with tiny feet and trembling hands. Before I could even cry, he'd lift me into his arms, kiss my forehead, and whisper, "I've got you."

And somehow...

the thunder never sounded so scary again.

I remember wrapping my tiny fingers around his index finger because my whole hand wasn't big enough yet.

I remember sitting on his shoulders at fairs, convinced I was taller than the world.

I remember falling asleep in the backseat while he carried me inside without waking me.

My father wasn't just my father.

He was home.

When I was little, I never understood why every girl said her father was her hero.

I thought they were simply stating a fact.

Because wasn't he?

He fixed broken toys.

He chased away nightmares.

He laughed at my terrible jokes.

He knew how to braid my confidence back together whenever the world made me cry.

If someone had asked me then what love looked like...

I would've pointed at him.

Children don't know that adults wear different faces.

To me, my father only had one.

The gentle one.

The patient one.

The safe one.

It wasn't until I grew older that I discovered there was another version of him.

One I had never been introduced to.

I don't remember the first time I heard them argue.

Maybe because arguments were never loud enough to wake me.

Or maybe because mothers have a habit of lowering their pain so their children can keep dreaming.

But I remember noticing the silences.

The way my mother's smile disappeared the moment my father walked into the room.

The way she apologized even when I wasn't sure what she'd done wrong.

The way he could spend an hour listening to me talk about school...

yet answer her questions with a single word.

At first, I told myself I was imagining things.

Because heroes don't make the people they love feel lonely.

Do they?

So I stopped asking.

And started watching.

I watched him remember my favorite chocolate...

and forget that my mother hadn't sat down all day.

I watched him proudly tell everyone how lucky he was to have such wonderful children...

while never telling my mother she looked beautiful anymore.

I watched him become the father every child deserved...

and somehow forget to be the husband his wife deserved.

The hardest part wasn't discovering my father had flaws.

It was realizing that my mother had known them all along.

There was one evening that has never left me.

I came home to find my mother standing alone in the kitchen.

The food had gone cold.

She wasn't crying.

She wasn't angry.

She was simply waiting.

Waiting for him to notice.

Waiting for him to ask how she was.

Waiting for something that never came.

That was the first time I looked at my father...

and didn't see my hero.

I saw a man.

A tired man.

A loving father.

A disappointing husband.

And I hated myself for thinking it.

Because how could the man who taught me what love felt like...

be the reason another woman questioned whether she was loved at all?

For weeks, I carried that question like a stone inside my chest.

Every time he hugged me, I hugged him back just as tightly.

But something had changed.

Not because I loved him less.

Because childhood had quietly packed its bags and left.

The little girl who believed her father could never be wrong...

was gone.

In her place stood a young woman learning that love and admiration are not always twins.

I still call him when life scares me.

I still smile when he tells one of his awful jokes.

I still see flashes of the man I built my childhood around.

And maybe that's what makes this so painful.

He never stopped being my father.

I simply stopped believing he was everyone's hero.

Sometimes I wonder if my mother ever looked at him the way I once did.

If she once believed he could outrun monsters too.

If she ever woke up one day and realized...

the monster wasn't a person.

It was disappointment.

If I ever fall in love, I hope my children think their father is a hero.

But I hope I never have to watch my daughter discover that her hero forgot to save the woman standing beside him.

Because every little girl deserves a father she can admire.

And every mother deserves a husband who remembers that she was someone's little girl once, too.

_________________________

Author's Note:

I never had ever thought in my life, that I'll ever write something like about my favourite man! But, what life would it be, if it comes out as expected.

Anyways, a gentle reminder that not always the same shine we see, would be the same Gold for others too ❤️

*-- Tanya --*