You ever sit in a motel room that smells like old soap and think, I do not even know what to say to my kid right now. You miss the game, the spelling test, the dumb joke at the dinner table. You work 7x12s, drive two hours back, and by the time you call, they are brushing teeth or already out. Feels like the road is stealing your spot.

It does not have to. You cannot be there every night, but you can show up in ways that stick. It is not big speeches. It is small, steady moves that tell your kid, I am here, even when I am miles away.

Call before the noise finds you. Five minutes in the truck after shift, engine off, phone on speaker. Say you are tired. Say you miss them. Ask one simple question they can answer fast. “What was the best thing today.” Let them talk. Do not fix anything. Just listen. Kids do not need you to be a hero on the phone. They need to hear your voice when the day is still warm.

If you keep missing each other, make a time and guard it like a start-up. Put it on the wall, same way you write owners and steps. Six p.m. their time. Ten minutes. If the shift runs long, drop a text you wrote at lunch. “Proud of you. I will call in the morning.” It is not perfect. It is honest. Honest beats silence.

Send small proof you are thinking of them. Picture of the sunrise over the yard. Picture of your boots lined up by the door so you do not track mud in like an animal. Picture of your lunch when you finally remembered to eat real food. They do not care about iron roughnecks. They care that you still act like their dad or mom in the middle of the grind.

Talk about ordinary stuff. Grocery list. Dog hair. The weird noise the fridge makes. If you only call to lecture or ask about grades, they will dodge your calls. If you call to laugh about the cat stealing your chair, they will pick up. You are building a habit, not a meeting.

When you get snappy because you are fried, own it fast. “I am cooked. That tone was on me. I love you.” You are not less of a parent for saying sorry. You are teaching them how to fix it when they mess up. That lesson travels further than any speech.

If your kid is small, read the same short book every call. Two pages. Same goofy voice. You will think it is nothing until they remind you to do the voice. If your kid is older, ask them to teach you something from their world. A song. A game. A thing you do not get. Let them be the expert for four minutes. Pride hits different when a parent listens.

Write postcards from ugly places. Pumpjack field on a windy day. Motel with a broken ice machine. “Miss you. Ate eggs. Weld went good. See you soon.” Toss it in a mailbox. Mail is slow. That is the point. They get a surprise from you on a day that is not a holiday. Those little cards end up in shoeboxes that live longer than phones.

When you roll home, do not try to make up three weeks in three hours. Sleep first. Eat at the table. Ask what you missed and let them catch you up without rushing. Walk into their routines like a guest who knows where the glasses are. The week will go better if you do not blow up the schedule they survived without you.

Money is part of why you are gone. Say it straight without making it their fault. “I work so we can live, but I am still your dad, still your mom. I will keep calling. I will keep showing up.” Kids understand more than you think. They just need words that make sense.

There will be days you feel like a visitor in your own house. That passes. Keep stacking small moments when you are gone, and the reentry gets easier. A note on the fridge. A dumb inside joke you only use on the phone. A promise you keep, like pancakes the first morning you are back, even if you burn them.

You build pressure vessels and miles of pipe. You keep plants running and rigs on schedule. You can build this too. It takes the same stuff: planning, patience, and clean starts. Two calls a day are better than one long one a week that never happens. Five minutes of your voice beats an hour of guilt.

The road is heavy. The work is heavy. Love is the reason you carry it. Do not let the job do all the talking. Call from the tailgate. Call from the stairwell. Call from the quiet side of the parking lot with the flare stack in the background and tell them you love them in the middle of all this steel. They will remember.

Respect.