Dear dad.
I never got to say my final goodbyes to you.
I made the choice not to travel to France, I knew you’d understand my reasons, it’s not that that I’m angry about.
Id thought I’d still be granted a few moments to say good bye.
I didn’t get those words.
But I want to speak my words to you now.
Tell you what I wanted to say to you those 10 long years ago.
I would tell you that I was sorry.
Sorry for the way you were treated.
Test after test, operation after operation even though the we knew the original you was gone.
You should have gone out with a bang, some tall tale that would have made your friends smirk with that knowledge of typical Roger, always up to something.
It wasn’t the end any of us wanted for you.
I wanted to tell you that I understood why you were the kind of dad you were.
Always working yourself to the bone to provide for us, and when you got down time you were either too exhausted to spend it with us or too mentally exhausted that you needed time on your hobbies to clear your head.
I don’t think people understand quite how difficult it is for firefighters to witness what they do.
But running my own business as a single mum I got that need to escape.
I wasn’t always the mother I thought I’d be too, and I wanted to forgive you for any times it didn’t go as planned, for I now know you for doing what you thought was best.
I wanted to thank you for the memories.
Ice skating on the mill pond, climbing the tank track and hunting the stinky knobs in the woods.
Shopping and cooking together when my mum and my sister visited Paris. We had rostie potato, mangetout and sirloin steak.
That meal will always remind me of you. As will muscles or cod roe on toast.
And making the ‘halloween punch’ for all our friends before jumping out of the loft hatch to scare us all.
I wonder how many parents knew you were feeding their little precious booze when we were only 10 years old!
But it did make you pretty cool in my eyes.
You weren’t always the perfect dad, but you did the best you could with the tools that you had.
It’s from you I got the ability to take on any task big or small regardless of having the skills or not, hey, what could go wrong?
You gave me the love of nature and finding peacing in the quiet places on this earth.
And you made me a stubborn arse just like you too. But that’s not always a bad thing.
I wish you had been around long enough to see me find happiness with Jace.
To see Katie and Jonny grow into the beautiful and kind adults that they are now. I can picture how you would be showing them off to your friends.
So proud.
And if there is anything after the grave, I hope you check in on those 2 often as they’re both going places and will change the world to be a better place.
And I forgive you, for all the cross words. The accusations. And the silences.
Sometimes people who are too similar ruck horns like the wild deer in the woods. Never really winning, just wearing each other down.
And I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me too?
I am and always will be proud to be your little girl.