At the age of 18 I passed the university entrance exam. It was the happiest day of my life… and also the day it left the deepest scar on my heart, a mark that accompanied me for fifteen years.

I still remember clearly that ominous afternoon. From the window of the small house on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the evening light fell on the admission letter: the prestigious Mexico City engineering school I had dreamed of for so long! My hands trembled; I was crying with joy. For the first time I felt that, despite a childhood full of shortcomings, I had done something worthy for my mother. But a few hours later that paper turned to ashes in my stepfather’s hands.

He — Raul — didn’t say a word; He looked at me with cold eyes and set it on fire. I screamed, ran to try to get her back, but it was too late. He turned and left in silence, leaving me lying on the floor, the smell of burnt paper still soaked in my hands.

At that moment my hatred for him was born. I hated him so intensely that for fifteen years I didn’t get to call him “dad,” I didn’t look him in the eye, I didn’t attend the family meals at which he was present. Shortly after I left the house. My mother — Teresa — called me and cried, but I had definitively closed the door to the past.

Since I left without money, I had to put my university dream on hold and work to survive in a textile factory in Monterrey. A year later I took the exam again and got a place at another university; It wasn’t as prestigious as the first one, but at least it was a university.

I graduated, found a job, and struggled in the big city of Mexico City. When my life gained some stability and I was able to buy a small apartment, I had not returned to my town even once. My mother called from time to time and told me that my stepfather was weak, that he hardly ate… but I was silent.

I didn’t care. To me, he was the man who had killed my dreams, the one who had stolen the path that should have been mine.

Last month my mother called me with a trembling voice:

— It is… he left, daughter. He had a heart attack while sweeping the yard. Can you come home?

I didn’t say anything. Hung. That night I drank alone. I didn’t cry; I did not feel sadness or joy; just a void. The hatred he had harbored for years seemed to dissolve in the smoke of alcohol.

Days later I returned to the house. The house was more deteriorated than before. My mother was emaciated, her hair almost white. He hugged me and cried. For the first time in many years I let myself be hugged.

After dinner, my mother called me into her room and said she wanted to show me something. I followed her reluctantly; Then he handed me an old wooden box and said:

– There is something important here, open it.

With that she turned around and left me alone in the room. I opened the box and was speechless when I saw its contents. There were stacks of newspapers and magazines with clippings from my high school days, some documents regarding my admission at 18, and a notebook yellowed by time.

I opened the notebook; on the first page was written: “Diary — written for the boy who will never call me Dad.” I was surprised; My hands trembled as I turned the pages and read each crooked line.

“Today he received the admission notice. Smiled. It was the first time I had seen him laugh like that…”

“I burned the notice. I am a wretch. But the tuition fees at that school are very high. I did the math: even if we sold our cows, it wouldn’t be enough. If he went to that school, his mother would have to go into debt with moneylenders. It scares me. I don’t want them to be chained to debts for life. I chose the worst way out: to kill his dream so that we could live in peace.”

“He hates me. I get it. But if I had another chance… I would do the same. I’d rather he hate me than see him suffer, than see my wife suffer. I am useless; I can’t take good care of my wife and children. I wish that year I had been more careful, I hadn’t fallen off the roof and gotten sick; everything would have been different.”

The words squeezed my chest. I knew that my stepfather had fallen off the scaffolding years ago and that his health had deteriorated, but I didn’t imagine that he was carrying a hidden disease with him. That is why he often took time off work and stayed at home; I had judged him in silence, thinking that he was lazy, that he left the effort to my mother. She had lived wrong: she had misunderstood a man who was hard in his manners, but who bore silent sacrifices.

I hugged the notebook and went to the kitchen. My mother washed the dishes. I put the notebook down on the table and asked in a low voice:

“When did you know this?”

She stopped, looked at me for a long time, and finally answered:

– I just found out. I also thought he was doing it out of hatred for me. After you left, he didn’t say anything. We spoke little. I didn’t understand until I went through his things.

My throat tightened:

— I hope… I would have said something.

My mother shook her head and tears filled her eyes.

— I hope… but he was always like that: no matter how tired he was, he did not complain; He always endured everything alone.

That night I sat in front of the small altar of the house. For the first time in my life I uttered a word that I had avoided for years:

– Dad…

“Dad.” Those two syllables came out of my mouth and choked in my throat. After years of repressing me, the tears were released.

I thought that some people come into our lives just to hurt us. But I understood that sometimes wounds are not born from a lack of love, but from the inability to show it. My stepfather was like that: rough in words, but devoted in sacrifice. And that night I called him with the two most sacred words.

After sitting down at his memory and saying “Dad,” I felt a huge relief. But a will also arose in me: not to allow what happened to me to be repeated with other children.

I asked for a transfer at work and returned to Guadalajara — to the place where my pain and childhood memories were scarred. My mother’s house is on a small street: the mossy roof, the peeling walls. My mother was aging and weak, so I decided to stay with her and take care of her in her later years.

Every morning I would get up early to sweep the yard — the task my stepfather used to do and now missing since his death. Sometimes, while he swept, he imagined that he was still there, working in silence, without complaining.

La imagen de aquel día en que quemó mi aviso me persiguió durante quince años; fue mi mayor tormento. Pero con el tiempo la herida se convirtió en una luz guía: ningún niño debería ver truncado su sueño por la pobreza.

Empecé con poco: dar clases gratuitas a los niños del vecindario — hijos de obreros, de albañiles, y de familias humildes. Por las noches, la sala antigua de mi madre se transformaba en un aula. Cuando entendían un problema de matemáticas o resolvían una fracción con soltura, sus ojos brillaban y yo no podía contener las lágrimas.

Con los ahorros de mi trabajo anterior en la Ciudad de México, puse un pequeño fondo que llamé «Fondo Becas Satyam» (Satyam es mi nombre). Ese fondo ayudaba a pagar las colegiaturas de estudiantes pobres que soñaban con entrar a la universidad.

Al principio sólo pude apoyar a unos cuantos. Pero un año después el fondo se extendió por toda Guadalajara y por municipios cercanos en el estado. Muchos chicos aprobaron exámenes de ingreso para ingeniería, medicina y formación docente. El día que recibí las primeras cartas temblorosas de agradecimiento, recordé la libreta que mi padrastro había escrito en silencio — ese diario donde él llamaba al chico «el que jamás me llamó papá».

Lloré desconsolada y susurré:

— Papá, esto lo hago por ti. Para que nadie más pierda su sueño por culpa de que alguien no pudo decir lo que sentía.

In the last days of my mother’s life, I took care of her with all my heart. She used to sit in the porch watching the children run in the playground and smile saying:

“If he were alive and saw you now, he would be so satisfied…”

I believe it. My stepfather left no wealth or honor in my life; He left a mark, a wound. But over time that scar became a beacon.

After fifteen years of resentment, I thought my life was in tatters. In the end I understood that this pain taught me the meaning of sacrifice: sometimes love is clumsy, dry, and only noticeable in silent renunciations. Today, when I see a boy holding his admission letter, I am the 18-year-old again; But this time my tears are not bitter, they are of pride.

And I know, with all my being, that my stepfather, in his own way, always watched me and smiled silently. So now, when I call him with the most intimate word, I call him tenderly: dad.