Daddy - Stay With Me,

When you are three, "Stay with me, Daddy" means holding his hand tighter in a crowded supermarket. It means tears at the preschool gate, your tiny fingers reaching through the chain-link fence because his broad shoulders walking away feel like the sun disappearing behind a cloud.

We don't talk enough about the role reversal. Society tells us that fathers are the protectors, the immovable mountains. But what happens when the mountain starts to erode? stay with me, daddy

It is the quiet panic when he gets winded walking up the stairs. When you are three, "Stay with me, Daddy"

When you are thirty, "Stay with me, Daddy" changes shape again. Society tells us that fathers are the protectors,

In a world that tells us to be independent, to "cut the cord," and to stand on our own two feet, the plea "Stay with me, Daddy" feels vulnerable. It feels childlike.

We all know how this story ends eventually. No one gets out of here alive. But "Stay with me, Daddy" isn't actually a denial of that ending. It is a demand to savor the middle.