Letter to my late father..

Crazy that I was talking to the Chairman of a committee on a complex here – and the conversation brought back so many memories….

Four years ago, this November, I flew over to UK to see you , Dad and my Mum: separately of course as you’d been married to your , “”new wife”‘ of almost 50 years and Mum was  married to her  X husband, who’d died a year earlier. Though none of that is relevant…

What is relevant, is that my conversation in the office yesterday, with the departing chairman of a complex, who’d come to tell me ”off the record”, that our services weren’t going to be required, reminded me that I am your daughter : ie in the day I took the call to say you had died, totally unexpectedly, I sat at my machine and wrote the Tender for the Complex renewal, then 5 years old and now 8 years old and I tried to remember that all I knew you valued and forget the emotion…..

Our family are good at that: we smile; put on lippie, (at the stage the girls but who knows what the future holds)  and we pretend all is well, even when it isn’t. We’re not alone. I get that.

But I got to thinking of the last few days I spent with you . Days during which I knew we’d never be together again and somehow knew this was our , “‘Life Conversation””  that I’d treasure always..

For anyone daft enough to read this, I need to explain a little without boring you to bits: my Mum and Dad fell in love early, (think early to  mid teens); I was an accident , (apparently in the back of a taxi), and my parents were young enough to love me/ then my sister Maxine but too young for responsibility  ( we’re talking early 60s and my mum was a foster child, so it was all horrible)…

Anyway, roll forward many years , with some very happy memories Dad, including your friend Micky Bow, who was fab and the many times you took me out , including to a piano exam in Newcastle , where we had strawberries and cream at the castle, I just have to say a few things…. If there are angels, you’ll read this. If spirit is the thing ,, you’ll know this…

So I arrived in Gateshead one Friday night , 4 years ago, meaning to stay only one night and worried that Id have enough to say to you that would interest you (coz you were so very intelligent and well read). Surprisingly,  you made it easy: You’d bought porridge for me coz Id told you I like this and had GnT in , again coz you knew I enjoyed this. I was touched and totally taken aback: though we’d lived together from my birth to age 4/5? , then I’d slept on your settee for a year from 17 to 18, then married in haste, we’d not spent a huge amount of time. But you’d listened to me

So why am I writing to you? You’ve been with the angels for 0ver 3 years now and I know held no truck to the spiritual side – but I needed to express how much our last conversation meant to me. How I wished I’d known how l you were and could have found the courage to tell you more – but how much I realised that night, how much you did really love me, warts and all – and I realised I’d probably tried too hard to be someone I thought you wanted me to be when really, you saw me all the time…. Thank you Dad and I love you too.

So our family faces another doorway or two to the angels. No fuss: we’re not like that except all of our hearts are breaking but with this loss,, I pray we\ve all said what we want to say – though it’s never enough. To misquote Corinthians, “” and at the end, there is love””…..

I love you Dad – and I know that you loved me. Life is so very hard but love is all and let it hold us all strong.

x