Letter 18

04^th April 2014

Dear Catherine,

It is Friday at lunchtime, so the weekend is nearly here and I am looking forward to it, so I can do the things I want to do.  My work from Monday to Friday takes me out of my flat from 6.45 in the morning to 18.15 in the evening, sometimes later, so I have little fre time during the week.  I am still at the same company you used visit on school inset days when you were younger, but we changed office ,first to Mornington Crescent and last June back to Whitfield St, very close to where we were before.  Sometimes people here ask me how you are, as they remember you from your visits, but I just say good, which I know you are, but I would like to know more!  Work is treating me OK, I still enjoy it as much as ever, although I should have retired over two years ago.  Now I am hoping to work until May 2015 when I will reach the age of 69!!! And you will be 18.  As always, it is my prayer that you will make contact before that, but I imagine that contact with me must lurk at the very  back of your mind.  You may have closed your mind to me and be afraid to think about me.  I suppose I can understand why you feel like that, but if there is any way of making contact, I would say you have nothing to fear from me, I would just want to catch up with your life and make no demands on you. 

I have been reading a book called ‘Philomena’, you may have heard of or even seen the film.  It is a story about a boy who was separated from his mother because people in control at the time decided it was the right thing to do.  The mother had no choice at that time, in fact had to sign a document promising not to make contact with him and the boy, who was only 3 years old at the time had no idea what was going on, he just found himself in another family and, although he didn’t know it, also in another country.  As he grew up, he wondered about his mother and felt disturbed as he thought she had abandoned him and didn’t love him.  Whereas in fact this was not true, she did try to find him, she just didn’t have the means of finding out where he was.  She was even afraid to admit she had a son initially, but later, when she started to want to see him, those who knew, would not tell her where he was.  This true story has some parallels with our story.  I had to sign an undertaking that I would not contact you.  People told you I was a bad person who you should not see and you believed them, what else could you do?  Those people were important in your life at age 12, both those close to you and members of society who were charged with providing 'protection' for you.  So you, like the boy in the story, may believe I had abandoned you.  This could not be further from the truth.  But I have to accept it.  I can only pray that you remember the good times in our life when we spent a lot of time together, swimming, cycling, skiing – you must surely remember skiing, you had such potential to make it an enjoyable past time.  I think I must have read or made up a story to tell you nearly every night of your life from the age of one to ten years old or so.  Initially it was nursery rhymes and later books and then you wanted me to make up a story.  I remember Lennie the Lobster and later lots of murder mystery stories, involving you and some of your friends and you always succeeded in solving the plot.  You wouldn’t let me leave until you fell asleep, usually.  Sometimes you were ok to let me go in the back bedroom to do some work, as long as I didn’t go downstairs.  Those days are so far out of my memory, although I remember them with fondness.  If you see ‘Philomena’, you will come across the point when the boy's mother discovers he has already died.  When I read that, I just cried, thinking I don’t want to die or you too, before we are reconciled.  It’s such a hopeless situation, as nobody can do anything about it.  I am used to not seeing you now, as I suppose you are too.  But I will never forget you and will always love you.

All my love for now,

dad  xxx                                                                           at work