My name is Brian. I’m thirteen, and every night I still listen for the sound of his boots on the front porch. But they never come.

Dad was a Navy SEAL. He was the kind of man who could carry me on his shoulders like I weighed nothing, even after a long deployment. He taught me how to tie knots, how to face my fears, and most of all, how to never give up—even when things got hard. “Tough times don’t last, buddy,” he’d say, ruffling my hair. “Tough people do.” He was my hero. My whole world.

Then one ordinary Tuesday, two officers in dress uniforms came to our door. Mom’s knees buckled before they even said the words. Dad’s helicopter had gone down during a mission. He didn’t come home.

The house grew quiet after that. Too quiet. I stopped playing basketball in the driveway. I stopped laughing at memes with my friends. I just sat in my room, staring at the last photo we took together—him in his uniform, me grinning under his arm. It wasn’t enough. I needed more than a picture. I needed him.

So I started painting.

At first it was just something to do with my hands so they wouldn’t shake. But soon it became the only way I could talk to him. Every evening after school, I spread out my canvases on the garage floor. I mixed colors for hours trying to get the exact shade of his eyes—deep blue, like the ocean he loved so much. I painted the strong line of his jaw, the way his shoulders filled out his uniform, the small scar above his left eyebrow from a training accident he always joked about.

Each brush stroke felt like a conversation.

“Remember when you taught me to swim, Dad?” Stroke. “I scored my first goal last week… I wish you’d seen it.” Stroke. “I’m trying not to give up, just like you said.”

Sometimes I cried so hard the paint blurred. Sometimes I smiled because I could almost hear him chuckle and say, “That’s my boy.”

Mom says the painting is beautiful. She hangs every new one on the wall in the hallway. But the one I’m working on now is different. It’s the biggest I’ve ever done. Dad standing tall in full gear, the American flag behind him, looking straight at me with that proud smile he saved only for me. I’ve been working on it for weeks. I want it to be perfect.

I know he’s gone. I know I’ll never feel his hand on my shoulder again or hear him call my name from downstairs. But when I paint, he feels close. When I finish this canvas, I’ll stand in front of it and say everything I’ve been holding inside.

I miss you more than words can say, Dad.