The letter I most wish I could send (An open letter to....)

Member Name: fluffy duffy

Product:	An open letter to....
Date:	13/07/07 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All the things I want to say

Disadvantages: The one letter I cannot send

Dear Dad,

This August it will be 20 years since you died. People say that time heals the grief and to some extent the grief is not so raw as it used to be. However, you are still loved as much as ever and your memory is so very precious. You are thought of every single day and it is always with happiness.

So, what's been going on down here then? Well, a year after you died and four years after my little Robbie was stillborn, I met the man who I married. It was love at first sight and I paid the price for that. 16 years of being in a relationship where I was subjected to physical and verbal abuse practically every day. Yes, I know what you would have done if you had still been alive but I didn't find the courage to leave until 3 years ago.

However, I did have two wonderful sons to add to your collection of grandsons. You now have 7 grandsons, 2 great grandsons and my 2 stepchildren making a total of 8 grandsons and a granddaughter. You would be so proud. When both my boys were born, we had an Only Fools and Horses moment. You missed the episode when DelBoy finally becomes a Dad but he holds baby Damien up towards the night sky to show his mother who is "up there" like you are.

I wished like anything that as on so many other occasions, I could have you back for the day so you could hold them.

Mind you, when the youngest was born who has your name for his middle name, I thought it WAS you. That kid looks like you so much, all the family notice. He even walks like you and has the same habit of wiggling his right ear when his whole face is still. And he is VERY prudent with his money.....wonder where he gets that from, Dad??

Well, you know that when I nursed you, I gave up 6th form and went to college instead to be a nursery nurse. It was second choice for me as my dream was to finish A levels and become a teacher. College paid a grant, and with you not working and terminally ill, there was little choice. I'm now a specialist teaching assistant and love every minute of it.

Would I still have made the same decision to nurse you? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. You were the most wonderful patient, you never complained. Dying from leukaemia was a terrible thing. Your veins were so bad from all the needles for testing everything that we both cried every time at the hospital, but you were as brave and dignified as when you fought in the Second World War. You bore your pain with dignity and still found the time to share a joke with the doctors and nurses.

This last year has been very very special to me. Last year, three years after I left my exhusband, I met my new partner. Funny really, with you being an true EastEnder, I remember you telling me "Make sure you marry a Romford boy". Guess where he is from then? Yes, you've got it. My friends all think he is the best thing since sliced bread. The exhusband said "I bet the sun shines out of his ****" and yep, he's right!

So now, I am a Mum of four, with a wonderful partner. We aren't "properly married" but we went to Glastonbury this year and we had a hippy wedding in a tent in the mud with about 50 other couples and how many people can say Dame Shirley Bassey sang at their wedding reception? Ok, it was the two of us in folding chairs and wellies sharing a pizza and a Coke, but we were happy!

I often think of you "up there" as we called it, looking after Robbie and with your sister now, who I dearly miss too. But you are always in my heart, and like the song you used to sing "they can't take that away from me."

Must go now, I have to have dinner. Your 13 year old giant of a grandson has cooked, he is already a head taller than me and takes after you with his size 12 feet!

love you Dad
xxxxx

Summary: If you have things like this to say, say them now while you have the chance