I met a man who lost his wife at an early stage of his life.

He didn’t come from much, so little or nothing was really expected of him. Life left him with three kids and an infant. His children were not a source of comfort at the time because they didn’t yet understand what “loss” meant.

This man, a trader, had to go to the well-known Balogun Market in Lagos Island, Nigeria, to make a living and bring back something tangible to feed his family. It was said that he walked around the market, calling out to customers, persuading them to stop by his shop.

So when I see trends where girls flog men who try to persuade them to patronize their stores, I can’t help but imagine how many lashes he must have endured just trying to earn a living.

No one can truly tell when another person has experienced great loss. It isn’t written boldly on their face.

But he was a man. He wasn’t given the luxury of time to grieve.

One unfortunate day, sometime past 2 a.m., he received a call. His shop, and others on that line had been burned to ashes. Nothing could be salvaged.

This man went silent.

They lived in a room and self-contained apartment, with help his sister had sent from the East to assist with chores. He had five mouths to feed.

I often wonder about the thoughts that ran through his mind… the hidden tears, the fear, the anxiety, the frustration, the pain. There were school fees for five children and rent to pay.

What did life look like to him in that moment?
What did it feel like?

Losing the love of your life wasn’t enough, now he had lost his livelihood too. And he had a newborn to feed.

What kept him going?
Was it a wise choice to keep all five children under his care?
Why didn’t he remarry? At least there would have been some kind of help.

A soft lover boy became a soldier.

He was deployed by the widower’s colony.

He became a strict, stern, almost unlovable parent, but at the same time, a very present father. Not because life became easier, but because even when he had to struggle with public transport, fight through traffic, and return home late, he still went into the kitchen to prepare dinner and breakfast for the next day. He bathed his children, even in the late hours of the night, exhausted as he was.

Were there dark thoughts of running away?
Did he ever consider leaving the children with relatives, just to breathe again…

Just to be a young man?

There was a day his children were ready for school, waiting in the compound for the school bus. A sienna came to pick them up, but he had not been informed of any change in vehicle or driver. He trusted that his eldest was old enough to recognize the right bus.

But on that unfortunate day, the eldest had been informed and forgot to tell his father. He got into the car, and his siblings followed.

The father stepped out to say goodbye and immediately noticed the difference. Before he could get to the gate, the car had already begun to move.

I was told that this man ran after the car like he had lost his mind; barefoot, in a singlet and slippers.

He called the school. He called a family friend to confirm if the same sienna had stopped by to pick up her children.

Will you call that love?

He never hugged his children.
He didn’t shower them with gifts or words of affirmation.
People said they had never seen him smile, and even his children confirmed it.

Do you call this love?

My dad became a widower early in his life.

For years, I carried so many things in my heart that I never said out loud. I never told him I loved him growing up. I never hugged him. I never showed him how much I truly cared.

It wasn’t that I didn’t feel it, I did. Deeply. I just didn’t know how to express it.

Maybe life happened too quickly. Maybe grief filled the spaces where love should have been spoken. Maybe we both learned to survive in silence.

But on one particular morning, something in me shifted.

At 1:40 a.m. on the 26th of August, 2023, I sent him a long message…

one filled with everything I had held back for years. Every “I love you” I never said. Every moment I wished I had reached out but didn’t. Every ounce of gratitude, care, and tenderness I had buried deep within me.

That morning, everything changed.

It wasn’t just about the message, it was about breaking a pattern. Choosing vulnerability over silence.

Finally seeing my father not just as a man who showed up, but as a man who had lost, endured, and still continued.

A widower.
A father.
A man who carried his pain quietly.

Loving him out loud became something I chose from that moment on. Not perfectly, not every day, but intentionally.

Because love, real love, does not always look soft.
Sometimes, it looks like sacrifice.
Sometimes, it looks like silence.
Sometimes, it looks like a man running barefoot after a moving car.

And sometimes…
it looks like a widower who never learned how to say “I love you,”
but spent his entire life proving it.