The Silence Between Us
The Silence That Stayed
By Cheryl “Tori” Seals, Free-Range Advocate
I loved my father deeply, as both my dad and as a veteran whose service I deeply respected. His uniform and quiet strength shaped my understanding of duty and honor. But one of the greatest heartbreaks of my life is knowing I never got to see him step into the role of grandfather for my children.
In 1989, when I was sixteen, my father stopped speaking to me. No argument, no dramatic goodbye — just silence. That silence stretched on for nearly twenty years, until 2008. During that time, he built a new life with Sharon (his new wife) and the boys (my 3 stepbrothers), and together they created a family filled with milestones, memories, and laughter. They had the closeness that should have included us, too.
Meanwhile, my own children were born and growing — Kathrine in 1993 and Robert in 1997 — without the grandfather they should have known. They never heard his voice telling old Army stories, never sat beside him while he explained how things worked, never felt the unique kind of love that only a grandfather can give. That absence wasn’t mine to choose; it was his.
He blamed me for things that happened during my parents’ divorce — events completely outside my control. I was just a kid caught between adults, but somehow the burden of their choices landed on my shoulders. That misplaced blame hardened into silence, and silence became the wall between us.
When my granddaughter, Zoe, was born in 2009, I hoped that maybe the next generation could be the bridge between us. I imagined him holding her, maybe seeing pieces of me in her. But he declined. Even that chance, to meet his great-granddaughter wasn’t enough to break through the distance.
I never saw his eyes light up as he watched them grow.
He never allowed himself the joy of knowing them.
That remains one of the quietest and deepest losses of my life — not the kind that shatters you all at once, but the kind that quietly reshapes you over time. It’s the ache that comes when you realize that love alone isn’t always enough to mend what pride and pain have broken.
Still, I choose to remember the honorable side of him — the veteran who served with courage, the man whose sense of duty helped shape my own. Because holding on to pride feels lighter than carrying the weight of anger.
Remembering him for his strength instead of his silence is how I honor both the love that once connected us and the loss that taught me what silence can cost.
That kind of grief doesn’t roar — it hums quietly beneath your skin, reshaping you over time. It’s not the kind that heals cleanly; it’s the kind that lingers, whispering it could have been different.
But I’ve learned something in the years since: silence doesn’t have to define the story.
I can’t undo those lost decades, but I can choose what remains. I remember the best of him — the soldier who served with honor, the man who taught me to keep my word, the father who once believed I could do anything. I can honor his service without carrying his silence.
Now, when I stand before lawmakers, veterans, or surviving families, I think of him. I think of what silence cost us — and what it still costs so many families who serve. Distance grows when pride replaces love, when duty drowns emotion, when no one speaks first.
Maybe that’s why I fight so hard for connection — for families who have been fractured by service, loss, or bureaucracy. Because silence isolates. It steals time and understanding. And no one, not a veteran, not a widow, not a child, should be left alone in that kind of quiet.
So I write. I speak. I tell the stories that hurt and heal in equal measure.
Because silence doesn’t end by itself.
It ends when someone chooses to break it.
And this — this is me breaking mine.
