Mio, I love you so much?” I said to my 12-year old son as we walked toward a Van Leeuwen in New York City for some dairy-free ice cream. He looked at me—half embarrassed, half grateful. His look said it all. From the very first moment that I held him in my arms, I made a promise: he would never doubt how deeply his Papa loves him.
I didn’t always have those words, especially because hearing the words “I love you” from my father, the most important man in my life, was rare. My father showed his love through action—working long hours, paying bills, giving us everything we needed. But I could count on one hand the number of times that my father said the words “I love you.” Not because he didn’t feel them, but because he never heard them from his own father.