if you were to write one last letter who would it be to and what would you write?

There was something in the news recently about the state-run postal service in Denmark closing down and delivering it’s last letters, the postboxes to be sold off. The thought of it filled me with dread and a fear of what would we do, where would we go, how would people send a letter? And that it was just wrong. I may not write many letters nowadays but I used to, and I love to send a birthday card, and a postcard from abroad, especially to my dad when he was alive as he always told me how much he loved receiving them. 

In Write Out Loud, the bereavement writing group that I attend in the hospice, as some of you may already know, we thought about who we would write our last letter to, and what would it be about. I chose to write to my dad Jim (1935 – 2021).

Dear Dad,
I would be sending you a postcard, sharing with you an image of where I am on my travels, as I always did, as you loved receiving them so much, but today I’m going to take a bit more time and write you a letter as due to the postal service closing down . . . I know, I know, it’s incomprehensible isn’t it! I can see you’re not happy about it, actually that’s an understatement. How are you meant to receive your bills, your doctors letters, my postcards, your post? I hear you say. I don’t know dad, I haven’t got any answers for you right now, but what I do know is that this will be the last letter I’ll be able to send you.

I can just imagine you being all settled in to read it. You’ll be sat in your red Parker Knowles velvet recliner in the living room, doors and windows shut, central heating up high enough to make the room feel like the tropics, well, bar the humidity. So warm and cosy.  You’ll have a cup of strong sweet steaming tea at your side, and depending on the time perhaps a light sandwich to snack on.  And you’ll be wearing that awful navy blue ski glove that always confuses people when they see it on your right hand that you point blank refuse to remove. The gaffa tape holding parts of it together don’t help, it looks a right state dad. But I know you don’t care.  Your hand is always cold, however high the central heating, like ice it is and always has been ever since you had that stroke after the brain aneurysm. It made me smile seeing how you used it to good effect though, gesturing your point, waving to another almost like the Queen haha and I loved how you really didn’t care what anyone else thought about it.  You knew what you needed and what made you feel comfortable. 

With your hands firmly in place at the end of the armrests you’d shove your hips and bum forwards, your shoulders back and get settled into the reclining position. Now you’re good, now you’re ready to read my letter.

I can also imagine me stretched out on the sofa I’ve moved Zoe’s cushion out of the way, the place she always sat is where I snuggle my shoulders into. Well, I say snuggle, maybe that’s more of a sensation from the temperature of the room as the sofa, even though you rate it so highly and will so generously recount the story of it’s longevity and how you had it reupholstered etc, it’s actually pretty hard, alright, firm. But that doesn’t matter. I loved hanging out with you in the living room, proud to be your daughter, proud that you were my dad, and perhaps more strongly so due to all the years we spent apart, when we hardly saw each other. 

I loved your curiosity. You’d often be interrupting a program to ask me some random question, wondering how things were done, what something was. Sometimes I’d be like ‘daaaaad! I’m trying to watch this program.’ You might eye roll, and go for another slurp of tea, you weren’t fussed. 

I could hang out with you all day like that, relaxing, being horizontal, warm, sharing your company.  

And of course we’d go through your sequence of programs, same ones in the same order everyday. You loved it when A Place in the Sun came on as more often than not they’d be in Spain and having lived out there for years and travelled around a large part of the country I could tell you about where they were. And even though you missed me when I lived there I know you were so proud of me for having the courage to move out there and set up a new life. ‘Just come and visit me twice a year’ you’d say, ‘and I’ll be good’ And I did, minimum. And in-between you’d phone me, without fail, every Saturday morning as regular as clockwork.

Thank you dad for being so easy to hang out with and thank you for always checking. I’m going to go now, but I love you loads and am thinking of you always.

Lots of Love form Lara xxx