This week I found myself sitting at the fire pit, looking out over the lake.

There was no fire. Just a quiet summer afternoon.

I was sitting in one of the cedar Muskoka chairs that surround the fire pit. They’re the familiar wooden chairs found throughout cottage country, built for slowing down, lingering conversations and simply watching the world go by.

More than twenty-five years ago, my father built them.

As I sat there, I found myself running my hand across the weathered cedar. Decades of sun, rain and snow had softened the wood, yet the chair remained as solid as the day he made it.

And I began thinking about my father.

Growing up, I knew him as a hardworking farmer. The farm demanded almost everything he had to give. There were animals to care for, machinery to repair, cages to mend and another day waiting before the one before it had truly ended.

Like many men of his generation, my father didn’t speak easily about his feelings. Before he came to Canada, he had already lived through more hurt than most of us could imagine, three and a half years in Russian prison camps as a young man.

As a child, I often wondered whether my father loved me.

Not because he wasn’t there.

Not because he didn’t provide.

But because I was listening for words that never came.

To help me, a dear family friend would often tell me that my father was proud of me and that he loved me.

As the demands of the farm eased later in his life, my father spent countless hours in his workshop. He built Muskoka chairs like the one I was sitting in, doll cradles for my daughters and rocking horses for his grandchildren.

At the time, I simply saw beautiful woodworking.

Today, I don’t just see beautiful woodworking.

I see my father’s love.

I’ve come to believe that every one of us has a language through which we naturally express love.

Some people speak it.

Some write it.

Some cook it.

Some plant gardens.

Some invite you into their home lives and family.

My father built it.

He built chairs that still gather our family together.

He built little cradles where my daughters lovingly tucked in their dolls.

He built rocking horses that carried his grandchildren into worlds only children can imagine.

Looking back, I also see another gift those later years gave him.

Time.

Space.

Inner peace.

My four children came to know a grandfather I had rarely experienced as a child myself.

He laughed more easily.

He teased them.

He was more of a trickster.

Watching him with my children, I often wondered where that man had been when I was growing up.

Today, I don’t believe he became someone different.

I believe life finally gave him the time, the space and the inner peace to express more of who he had always been.

When my twins were growing up, I taught them to tell their grandfather they loved him every time they saw him.

They did.

Faithfully.

A day or two before my father died, they told him once again that they loved him.

This time, he answered.

“I love you too.”

Those are the only words of love I ever remember hearing my father speak.

As he said them to my children, I found myself crying.

Somehow, as I listened, it felt as though those words had been given to me too.

For years, I thought those words were the beginning.

Sitting in one of his cedar chairs this week, I realised they weren’t.

They were simply the first spoken aloud.

He had been saying I love you all along.

He said it through the life he built for his family.

Through the chairs.

Through the doll cradles.

Through the rocking horses.

Through the laughter he shared with his grandchildren.

Through the precious gift of his time.

I simply hadn’t yet learned to understand the language my father spoke.

Every time I sit in one of my father’s cedar chairs, I can still hear him.

“I love you too.”

“I love you too, Dad.”