Letters 2024
Letter 76
14 Feb 2024 (Czech mountains}
Dear D,
I used to send you a Valentine’s card, always praying you would receive it, which over time seemed less and less likely; in my dreams that I could hand you the card in person, give you a hug and have a friendly chat with you. This, of course never happened. Years have come and gone and I am now in the cottage in the mountains, where you used to come with me all those years ago, for the week of mid-term break from your school between Christmas and Easter. You went skiing on the nursery slopes during the last two years we were together. But the following year, you didn’t want to come and one of your first cousins accompanied me. St Valentine’s Day also fell in that week that year and I had arranged for flowers to be delivered to your mum & you, to wish you love. I knew your mum & I were going through a shaky patch, which I hoped a week away would help to clear, but I had no idea what was about to happen that was to bring about our separation. I have not seen or heard from you in the intervening fifteen years. I can only pray that you are progressing successfully through your life. It feels as if you are further away from me than ever, but I am ever hopeful of making contact with you again. I always think of you with love and pray that some day it will happen with your blessing.
I am here with one of your half sisters and her family. It’s not been a good year for snow, with some rain and temperatures well above 0°, not conducive to good skiing. With difficult snow conditions, I have decided not to try downhill this year and there are few options for cross country skiing. So, I am at the cottage looking after things, while the others are off skiing. It’s very relaxing in this beautiful place, without WiFi, newspapers and TV news to disturb my thoughts, to do things I wouldn’t get around to at home. I have some books, to keep me company. I started one, which is a hard copy, lent to me by my daughter, about how we process memories and how they can impact on our lives. To balance it, I am also reading another book on my kindle, which is about modern understanding about love, and of course lovelessness. They both, in different ways, bring you to mind, as I often think of you in quiet moments, particularly here in this place, with so many reminders of you. I am only part way through both, so I can’t attempt to precis my thoughts, but some parts have resonated. Do we retain accurate memories of childhood events, or do we enhance them, adapt them to suit our current ideas, or do we, particularly with difficult or unpleasant experiences, shut them off from our active memory bank. Love, as a noun or verb, is not up for discussion and analysed in modern life, with little understanding of the role it has to play or even the benefits it can provide in any relationship, overpowered by inward looking selfishnesss, 'because you're worth it', inevitably leading to lovelessness. The subject of lies is considered, how it’s more prevalent than ever nowadays with the breakdown of relationship and cancel culture. I had better finish both books before giving any further thoughts, but both books touch on reasons why relationships in this day and age run into difficulties. Where that leaves you and I is unclear. Our failure to communicate is hugely regrettable, but it is impossible to put a finger on the reasons for it. I might say that you deserted me, because you have concealed yourself from me, or you might say I have deserted you. So, we are both right, or wrong. But surely there is something that can be retrieved in our relationship, something I consider precious and will always view as desirable and attainable, for my, but much more so, for your benefit.
Writing letters to you like this, is my only lifeline to you. In my previous letter I said I would continue to write to you, although I have at times wondered if I should continue. I know I will now keep writing for as long as it will be my only possibility to make contact with you, fragile as it is. I have put all previous seventy-five letters into a safe place for you to access if you ever decide you would like to do so.
With all my love,
Dad xxx
Letter 77
29-08-2024 (at home)
Dear D,
It’s been a while since I wrote to you. Time does seem to pass too quickly, with one month merging into the next, leaving only a hazy memory of the previous one and hardly any definite milestones to identify the intervening days. I did try and start this letter twice without success, so now I am determined to persevere. Maybe encouraged by the fact that it has been raining most of the day preventing me from going out. It’s inevitable that our memories will try to fade in those long years since we were together. I do say a prayer about you, maybe not as frequently as before, that you are comfortable in your life, with good supportive friends, a job you can love, security of your housing, good health and as always, that you will find a way to extract me from the depths of your memory and try to reach out to me. I still occasionally look at my mail, on the outside chance there will be a communication from you, but no sign. I went for a meal yesterday evening with a couple of friends, who knew of you. They had come across a recent photo of you with a colleague at some occasion, probably on some social media platform. When we came home, I tried, but failed to access this on my phone, not in an attempt to troll you, rather in a sense of anticipation and excitement. Although they both were able to, I could not access the photo on my phone. It seemed a mystery, until they suggested you may have blocked me on your phone. As you would be quite entitled to do. GDPR is important and I have always respected your privacy. Maybe the same applies to an absentee father, in hiding, having deserted his daughter or son? Both scenarios are born from a desire of one to break off contact with another. I do not believe the motivation is the same in both of these cases, leaving the truth of the matter to drift off into the clouds.
Sorry about that. It’s just that you nearly touched me and re-ignited my thoughts about you. Like your life, mine moves on and different elements take focus every now and again. I often wonder if you know anything about me; you could see some things I posted on Facebook. This was the only view I had of you a few years ago until you removed your Facebook site. I guess probably not, so I’ll give you a bit of an update. When your mother, you and half-sister & brother finally moved out of our house in 2013, that allowed me to buy a flat for myself and begin to move on with my life with some form of security. It is a nice flat, I have had it completely refurbished and there was a time when I harboured hopes you might come and live here. But that didn’t happen. Slowly and surely any possibility of contact with you became more and more unlikely. I say the same to you as I did from the very first time we parted, that I would love to see at any time, even without any fore notice. It is my fantacy hope and prayer that you will appear at any time, in front of me or touch my shoulder from behind and everything will be put right.
Let me tell you a bit more about my life. I now have nine grandchildren, one or other of which come and stay with me for periods, passing through or visiting friends. That is except the youngest, only born last January, who is healthy, growing bigger seemingly by the day and I enjoy visiting every week or so. Another is coming over from Ireland next week to stay for a few days and is taking me to see a Shakespeare play at the Globe, by the Thames. His sister recently graduated from University with a First, which I enjoyed witnessing. It does bring to mind that I am missing these stages in your life, for which nothing can compensate.
I have a colleague in a charity with whom I do a lot of work, who is a fervent Manchester United supporter. She got me tickets and arranged for me to travel by supporters coach with her to Old Trafford a number of times in the last six months. The highlight was beating Liverpool 4-3 in the Cup semi-final. Do you remember I took you and the family to Old Trafford to see Manchester United play, I think you were about seven years old. We were treated royally in a director’s box with a meal served up after the game. I just found a photo of you with a Manchester United shirt which we bought before the game – I wonder if you are still a supporter; I’d love to know. Let me write again soon.
With all my love,
Dad xxx
Letter 78
18-12-2024 (at home)
Dear D,
Christmas is less than a week away, how did that happen? It might feel as if time is passing so quickly it is out of our control and we don’t have time to do the stuff we would like to do. But if I look over my recent diary, it isn’t like that at all, so much has happened, but it all gets jumbled together. For the first time in my life, I went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, in July. It was very inspiring, making me wonder why I hadn’t gone previously. In October I visited my sister in Majorca, and we travelled together with friends to do another 100 Km of the Camino into Santiago. In November I had a lovely visit to Prague and around Czechia to see members of my family and relatives. Prague is my second most favourite city, and I have great memories in the country. The Camino is a great way to experience a new section of countryside, from eye level, past fields & trees and into villages, meeting people, eating locally. This was the third year in succession that I have done the 100Km walk, always into Santiago, only this time we went beyond and saw Finisterre, on the Atlantic, what they thought was the end of the world in the Middle Ages, and which might as well have been, as the next stop if you set off from there was the Americas. I felt so at home the with wild weather and heavy seas and stories of shipping disasters and bravery. I know you would love the experience of doing the Camino, I wouldn’t be too surprised if you already had done part of it. I think that I will do another two sections in the next two years and can only dream that you could join me. You come so clearly into my focus these days as Christmas approaches with shorter days ending early to bring on the darkness, coloured lights in random houses, bright decorated shop windows, the sound of Christmas carols, memories of buying a Christmas tree with you to decorate at home, holding hands walking down steps in the shopping centre, choosing presents. Now these thoughts disappear, will they do so forever, whatever that is, fifteen years in like a prison sentence length, but is it really forever.
I can’t remember if I mentioned that I took a DNA test a few years ago. I wasn’t that anxious to take it as the connections seem so random and scattered depending on who took the test and their relationship to somebody in their family tree. When my report came in the post, I was informed I was 74% Irish, which was very heartening, but I was also 12% Eastern Europe with a little bit of English, Scottish & Spanish. I can understand the Irish connection. But I have no idea about the others. I completed a Family Tree on a website in 2016 in preparation for a large family gathering in Dublin that year. Ever since I have been receiving notifications from the site, sometimes telling me about someone who has created a family tree in some other part of the country/world, wondering if I wanted to add their information to mine. I also receive details of individuals, some still living, some long dead, with information about their percentage connection with me, which becomes more and more distant now, almost to the point of irrelevance. One thing which is interesting, is the number of women over the last almost 200 years that have your Christian name. I must have told you about my mother and grandmother but there are numerous others over time on the direct line and further afield who were also born with that name I remember so well. There are also many who have both birth names the same as you, although that is not so significant as one can change name at marriage or any time, I suppose. I have heard of people finding connections they didn’t know existed, following receipt of DNA results, where close links have unexpectedly turned up. I wonder if that happened to you and I, what either of us would do about it. Would you be tempted to hit on the connection? And what would I do? I could not make an effort to make contact as Data Protection laws would prevent me celebrating the ‘discovery’. I already know the truth anyway. In my heart I feel that you and I will make contact again. I was going to write that I hope it will happen, but my feeling is much stronger than that.
I would like to explore the significance of the connection between you and I in some future letter. If you have ever heard of the suggestion that we live on the shoulders of our ancestors, you may have ignored it, but traits can be passed on down the line, some of our physical features, our nature, our preferences, our political views all buried in among lots of other traits, but which can link our unique selves. This thought is for another day. Save that I know that I will recognise and feel comfortable with you as soon as I see you, as if the past fifteen years had never separated us.
This period is not really my favourite time of the year. Growing up in Ireland, there was never any kind of expectation that we were going to get anything much more that squally showers, some sleet, rarely show, occasionally no actual rain, maybe some sunshine, all in the same day. But the thought of Christmas approaching, release from studies or work, flickering lights and decorations on the trees, presents building up the anticipation, mince pies, Christmas cake and pudding, turkey hanging up to draw all promising so much.
With all my love,
Dad xxx