It’s been almost four years since you died, and there are so many things I wish I’d said to you, and so many things I wish we’d done together. I wish I’d asked you for more advice on the everyday things (parenting, gardening, DIY, work). I wish I could go down the pub for a pint with you. I wish we could go to a rugby match together. If you were my dad then we would probably be doing these things and more, but you were 60 years older than me.
You were my grandad. As I grew up you became an old man and, although I knew that one day you would no longer be with us, it didn’t make it any easier to lose someone who was my dad in all but name.
What I really wish I’d said was thank you. You stepped up, whether knowingly or unknowingly. You did it for love, and now that I have two children I understand it. I was too young to remember Dad walking out, but when I needed a constant father figure, that’s what you provided. Although my dad was around if I wanted him, it didn’t matter, because I had you.
The hardest days are Father’s Day, your birthday, Remembrance Sunday and the anniversary of your death. I get a warm memory of you when the Six Nations are on. Whenever the Welsh national anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, is sung I get tears in my eyes and I remember you and the excitable energy you brought when we watched games on Saturday afternoons. The numerous times you’d shout, “Come on, Wales!”, regardless of whether Wales were playing or not.
I remember spending the day with you on a Saturday: 15 March 2014. It was just the two of us. We watched three games back to back – well, I did, and you dozed. You were very ill, but it would be another three months or so before you died. There was something about that day I’ll never forget. It was like old times, and although you had no excitable energy left, you still had that sense of humour. At the end of it all, you said I should turn the TV off before it over-heated, because it had been on for so long. That was typical you.
My daughter was born a few weeks later and I’m sure you held on to meet her. I would have loved to have seen your face if you got to meet my son, who was born last year and who shares your name. I will make sure he knows why he has that name when he’s old enough.
I’m sorry I never called you Dad.
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