The Echo in the Nursery

There’s a ghost in my house.

It doesn’t wear chains or float through walls. It doesn’t shout. It whispers.

I hear it in the middle of the night, when my son cries and something deep inside me clenches. I feel it when I’m tired, touched out, overstimulated—and the urge to raise my voice creeps in like an old reflex. That’s the ghost. That’s the cycle.

It's not a haunting from some horror movie. It’s the echo of my past. A voice I never chose, but one I absorbed. It’s the sound of unhealed wounds and generational trauma passed down like an old heirloom no one ever wanted but couldn’t put down.

One memory lives permanently rent-free in me: I was four. My newborn baby brother was crying, and my father—trying to hush him—snapped. “Diamlah!!” he roared. At a baby. My mother flinched, shielding the baby like her body was a barrier. I remember the silence after. I remember feeling scared. Small. Like love had conditions. Like joy had a volume limit.

That was the day I learned how quickly a room could change.

And now, decades later, I stand in my son’s nursery, and sometimes… it happens again. I hear the ghost whisper. “He’s not listening. Show him who’s boss.”

But I don’t.

I close my eyes. I breathe. I choose differently.

Because I am not here to repeat the past. I am here to rewrite it.

Some days, I don’t get it right. I mess up. I raise my voice. I go quiet. I shut down. But then I whisper something back to that ghost: “I am not you.”

I remember what my late ustaz once told me:

Anak yang soleh kita kena syukur. Anak yang salah kita kena sabar. Maka selawatlah dan senyumlah.
(Be grateful for the righteous child. Be patient with the difficult one. So send blessings—and smile.)

I want to raise children who don’t have to recover from their upbringing. I want them to feel safe—even when they mess up. Especially when they mess up.

Because love isn't earned. It's not withdrawn when things get loud or difficult. Love stays. And I want to be the father who stays. Who sees. Who softens.

If my children ever read this, I want them to know:
You made me better.
You gave me the courage to confront the ghost.
And I fought it, every day,
so you wouldn’t have to.

-Ath