When my husband moved to Australia for work, one of the things that surprised me most was this: our kids don’t really talk to him on the phone.

No long conversations.
No dramatic “I miss you” moments.
No excitement to sit and chat for hours.

At first, it felt unsettling. Isn’t that how children are supposed to show they miss someone?

But over time, I began noticing something else.

My elder daughter rarely says she misses her dad directly. In fact, if you asked her, she’d probably just shrug and move on to the next thing. But she carries him with her in ways that are impossible to miss once you start paying attention.

She hums the ridiculous made-up songs he invented for her months ago — casually, absentmindedly — while colouring or playing by herself. Songs I had completely forgotten, but she hadn’t.

She still gets excited about swimming, something that was always “their activity.” Every splash in the water feels tied to memories of him cheering her on or playing alongside her.

Sometimes she suddenly brings up tiny moments with him:
“Remember when appa did this?”
“Appa says this funny thing.”
“Appa used to carry me like this.”

Not grand declarations. Just little memory fragments surfacing naturally through her day.

And then there’s my younger one, Dhriti, who approaches it differently altogether. She is still too little to hide emotions behind distractions or routines. She simply asks:
“Where is appa?”

Direct. Honest. Simple.

Watching both of them has made me realise something important:
children don’t always express love and longing in the ways adults expect.

We look for obvious signs — emotional phone calls, clinginess, tears. But children often process absence through memory, repetition, routine, and play.

Love shows up in the songs they continue singing.
In the activities they still associate with a parent.
In the stories they repeat.
In the questions they ask when the house gets quiet.

Sometimes, missing someone doesn’t look dramatic at all.

Sometimes it looks like a child humming a tune while building blocks on the floor.

And maybe that’s what makes it so heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.