‘I Can’t Believe Dad Is Back’: My Son’s Words and What a Child’s Grief Over Absence Taught Me

I have been away from home for close to two months.

Last week, I returned.

What met me was not simply a welcome, it was a reckoning.

My wife had already briefed me on the phone about what had unfolded in my absence, so I came home prepared. I knew what to expect. And yet, knowing did not diminish what I felt when it met me in person. My son held on to me the way a child holds on when he is no longer sure holding is guaranteed. He laid his head on my chest. He would not sleep on his own bed. He needed to be beside me.

My wife had told me everything. He had demonstrated, in the way only a child can, that he believed I was gone, not in clear terms, but with the full weight of a child’s unfiltered conclusion. He had told his teacher at daycare that his dad had moved out of the house.

He did not think I was traveling. He thought I was gone.

And it had begun simply. We had a morning rhythm, he would wake up, walk to my study, say a few prayers with me, eat the breakfast I had prepared, and get ready for the day. That was his structure. That was his security. When I left, he kept that rhythm anyway. Every morning for the first week, he walked to my study. Every morning, he came back with the same look on his face: Dad is not there. He did this for five days before something in him shifted, and when it shifted, it did not shift to understanding. It shifted to conclusion.

So I came home ready to hold him, and he held me back just as fiercely.

Three days after my return, he said to his mother,  quietly, still processing, I can’t believe dad is back.

We are bonding now. This week he is home from daycare. The morning routine has resumed, study, prayers, declarations, breakfast. He is back to jumping on me, teasing me, filling the house with the noise that only a child who feels safe makes. But I carry what I learned.

Presence is not a luxury in the life of a child. It is architecture. It is the structure inside which a child builds his sense of self, his trust, his interpretation of the world. When that presence disappears without a framework the child can hold, he does not simply miss you, he rewrites the story. And the story he writes is abandonment.

This is not only about fathers who travel. This is about every parent, in every circumstance. Whether a home is intact or separated, whether life is stable or in flux, the child must never be left without the assurance that they are not forgotten, not replaced, not left behind. That assurance is not delivered by phone calls alone. It is delivered by return. By showing up. By being, as much as humanly possible, there.

I told my son before I left. I sat him down and explained. But explanation is not enough for a child who has never experienced a separation that long. Next time, the explanation will carry more weight because now there is a precedent. I went. I came back. I will always come back.

That is the covenant.

That is what he needs to know.

N.B

Borno and Oyo Kidnap: 24 Days After:

As I rejoice in this reunion, I cannot stop thinking about the parents, the families, the husbands and wives who are waiting, waiting for children and teachers taken from schools in Borno and Oyo States to be returned to them. Today marks 24 days. My own reunion, full of warmth and relief as it is, has only sharpened the ache I feel for those who are still waiting.

One more day is too long.

We continue to call for daily briefings. We continue to demand visible, accountable effort. And we will not stop calling for what must happen, the unconditional reunion of these children and their teachers with their families.

Twenty-four days. One more day is too long.

This is my #50PlusDad reflection for today.