Dear Daddy

So..as it's Father's Day..I thought I'd write a long overdue letter...

Dear Daddy,It's fathers day today and I'm really missing you. It's been just over 3 years since I last saw you and it's too long.

I still find myself trying to phone you to tell you things...like the other day, I wanted to phone you to tell you something about school. When I realise what I'm doing, it makes me feel physically ill inside. I feel guilty that I've momentarily forgotten, then I'm angry because quite frankly I WANT to tell you things but you're not here. I'm soon going to be moving into my 2nd flat of my own and you won't see that one either, just like you haven't seen this one. It's times like this that I need my Dad to help me sort moving house. I got my degree...I never even told you. A 2:1...even with my lack of work! I got my job..I love it. It's hard work, but then we both knew it would be. I'm doing well, I think. I have a cat now..one of my own. He's called Milo and he's beautiful. Marmite died in November...he just couldn't live any longer. It was sad, but Mum and Naomi already had Smudge by then. We called him Smudge because of your favourite cat being called Smudge. Hannah's doing well..moving in with her boyfriend next year. How grown up! Naomi is at Sion, just like you wanted. Jamie teaches her geography...how funny is that?Bet you're proud she's studying that. She's starting to visit universities now. Remember the time you had to take me to Roehampton when the trains broke? I've made loads of new friends...Nat, Nicki, Gavin, Charlotte, Grace, Claire, Ellie. They're all London people. I think you'd have loved Nicki, she's hilarious. Her sense of humour is very similar to yours. Charlotte is amazing, she's now the world record holder for her swimming...you'd have liked her too. I wish you could meet them and I wish they'd have met you then they'd understand me a bit more!! Im still in contact with the girlies. Flick lives in Liverpool now and Goddard has just got a drama teaching job down here. Nicole has moved to Bournmouth. Cat's living in London but I still talk to her all the time. Other Cat is getting married! Ben and Christina got married in April. It was lovely, a picture of you came up from our weymouth trip all those years ago...you should've been there. I played piano and Hannah and Karen played trumpet. It was so lovely. Ruth and Craig got married last year...remember me saying they would? That was also a lovely day. Guess who's had a baby? Claire! I know!! It's crazy, so unexpected but he's just beautiful. He's called Noah and I went to see him last weekend. You should know all this, you should be here.

Angry. I'm still angry that you went. It was a little selfish on your part wasn't it? You left Mum to sort everything and deal with us 3. You left Naomi at 13 without a Daddy to see her through her teenage years. She's really going to miss you at her 18th next year. You were supposed to be around for that, dance with her, embarass her. You left Hannah...oh my GOD...the drama that caused! Did you have to? Because she's hard enough to deal with at the best of times..Then you left me. I don't like change and that was the biggest change in my life so far. You left this hole in my life that I just can't fill. You were my tower of strength and my reassurance for everything in life. I depended on you and loved you more than I ever told you. Seriously...why? We had to try so hard not to fall apart without you, but even now, I can feel this emptiness that is still in all of our lives. How could you leave Mum? She has no-one else. You were her everything and now she doesn't have that. That makes me more sad than anything else.

I'm not really angry with you Dad, but I am angry that you died. I'm angry with everything that came with it and I'm angry that I wasn't able to show my emotions and still have trouble expressing them. I've not shed many tears about it yet...they seem like they're going to appear and then I stop them. I have this bubble of emotion inside me that rears it's head until I suppress it and hide it away. This just makes me seem stroppy (ssh...I know what you're thinking!). I actually become this horrible person around certain dates, I try my best to stop it but I can't. I try to explain to my friends that I don't mean what I say but it comes out anyway and they don't understand. I need to stop it but until I've talked about it and let my tears flow, that's not going to happen. But you know as well as I do that I don't cry, especially not infront of people. Please help me Daddy, I need you.

I went to see your parents in half term. Your Dad isn't very well at all. It makes me sad to see him looking so frail, but his sense of humour is still there. He has a huge picture of you in his room. He's bossing your mum around now...he'd never have dared in the past huh? She's softened a tiny bit but it's too little too late to be honest. Nany and Grandad are well...she's got a hearing aid now so can finally hear us! Cousin Clare is going to Afghanistan in a few weeks, I think Helen is a little nervous, understandably.

Sometimes random memories come into my head that make me feel a mixture of happiness and sadness. Like the time you shook the chocolate sauce so hard not realising the lid wasn't on properly...do you remember that? It was hysterical..chocolate everywhere...even behind the piano! Or the time that donkey nearly bit your nose when you put your face down to it? So funny. I also still have the plastic magnetic letters you bought me and wrote me messages on my radiator. "Wake up gemma" and "sod it" hahaha. I left them just like that until mum re-decorated the house. Do you remember waking me up in the mornings for school? I resented you so much for all the water flicking at the time...but now I'd give anything to have you wake me up that way! I also sometimes remember how you got a later train to work on my first day of Davison so you could walk with me to the station. You knew how nervous I was even though I never said it. Or the time you bought me sweets at the little chef on our way up to uni when I didn't want to go back? I never had to say how I was feeling to you, you just knew and did things to make me feel better. I miss that. Mum tries, but she doesn't get me like you did.

I try so hard to remember the good things, the funny things, but sometimes all I can see is you in that hospital on the morning you died. I know you knew we were there, did you feel me close your eyelids? Did you feel Naomi take your watch off to wear? Did you hear it when I realised you weren't breathing?At the time I couldn't cry, it was too surreal. Naomi told me off for not being upset. I was upset, just, it hadn't hit me what was happening, yet I remember it all in so much detail. You would've been impressed with your funeral Dad...we all wore bright colours. Hannah read a poem and I did a Bible reading. Two of Hannah's friends played beautiful music for you. The church was packed...everyone came. Planning for that was horrible, no-one wanted to do it so I had to sort it...I hope I chose the right stuff, I tried my best to. Jane and June stayed with us around that time, it was nice to have different faces around!There's so much more I could tell you about, and maybe someday I will. I may even talk to someone else about it, I think I need to. But just know that I love you, you were the best Dad ever and you're in my thoughts every hour of every day.

I miss you Daddy.

Lots of love xxxxxxxxx