A letter to….

:shock:

You were 25 before I realised you existed. My wife of 20 years and I were in Edinburgh, where I grew up, to attend a funeral. There, a woman introduced herself as E, a friend of N, who was briefly my girlfriend in 1976, before I moved to England. Did I know, E asked with undisguised hostility, that soon after we’d split N had realised she was pregnant and later had a baby boy?

The news left me – and my wife – reeling. To learn that someone I’d known nothing about might be my son took my breath away. I asked E why N had never told me she was pregnant, or included me in her child’s life. Because I’d left Scotland, she said, and N had been too hurt by the end of our relationship.

As I talked to E, I felt sick (and felt worse when she told me N had died years before) but also excited. My wife looked withdrawn. E promised to ask if you would like to meet me and a week later I received her email saying that you would. Within days I was back in Edinburgh, anxiously scanning the cafe where we had agreed to meet.

I’d planned to ask if you’d be willing to undergo a DNA test, but the second I saw you I knew it was unnecessary. You are the spitting image of my late father as a young man. Seeing you took my breath away, and looking now at the couple of photos I have of you has the same effect.

As we got to know each other in the months that followed, we pieced together our pasts. I learned you had been in the navy until a medical condition (which runs in my family) forced you to leave. You learned that my wife and I have a daughter, then aged 10.

Perhaps if we’d dug a little deeper into each other’s history, we’d have been forearmed. But even as you began to pay visits to our house, even as your half-sister grew to love you, and as I started to become used to the idea of this tall, shy, wry man being my son, things began to fracture. My wife couldn’t accept your sudden arrival into her family. To you, her hostility must have seemed irrational. I should have told you that in 1983 we’d had a baby born dead, that she’d recovered from his loss, and that her reaction to you was the unfair but primal response that you were the “wrong son”.

I finally pieced together what E hadn’t told me – that your mother had killed herself, that you, aged 12, had found her hanging, and that in the absence of a father had lived out your childhood in care. You don’t blame me for that, but guilt engulfs me: I used N for sex, discarded her and left both of you in prolonged turmoil.

Because I can’t look at you without seeing ghosts (of my stillborn son, of your mother, of my dad), it seemed like the easier choice when my wife broke down and told me she couldn’t cope with having you in our lives, to end all contact. But now I’m haunted again, by your distressed dignity as I told you, by how achingly I miss you, by my daughter asking where her brother has gone. I damaged your childhood by my absence, and your adult life by my rejection. I hope you hate me, but I suspect you’ll blame yourself instead.

I want you to know that you’re a wonderful person, and none of this is your fault. E told you my name when you turned 16; you could have looked for me but, you said, you didn’t want to intrude in any new family I might have. Showing no such restraint, I blundered into your life and blundered out again.

I am so sorry. I miss you, and mourn the missed years of your life. You are a son any man could be proud of but I don’t deserve to be your dad. With love and regret, Anonymous

You’ve been ­missing for nearly five months. Every day we look out from our kitchen window to the gap under the fence at the back of the garden. This was your route back to the house after your adventures. Your black ears would appear first, followed by your green eyes, constantly scanning, and pink nose. And then you’d push the rest of your muscular black and white body under the fence and dart to the safety of the catflap at the back door.

You’ve never been away this long. You’ve ­always been the strong, silent, independent type. But always wanted cuddles, too, so you were never far from the house.

What has happened to you? We miss you. We don’t think you’ve been taken. You are a one-family cat and would dart like a missile if any strangers came near to you. We don’t think you’d be easily tempted by ­another offer … would you? Were you hurt? You’ve ­always been “a big lad”, as the vet used to say, and in all your five years of cat life I’m not sure how many of your lives you used up.

I used to get cross with you for being so muddy. Your big ­adventures would end with your white fur ­covered in mud and dirt, but I loved you no matter how much cleaning up we’d have to do. I used to get cross with you for announcing to us in a garbled and muffled miaow the presence of a small furry or ­feathered creature, often alive, ­wriggling in your jaws till you decided its fate. Where are you? We’ve looked for you, called your name when we’ve been out walking near the house, asked around. We wondered if a fox could have taken you.

The funny thing is that another cat just like you went missing at the same time. I rang the number of the people who put up the poster and they’d had the same ­experience – the speculation, the ­theories, the shared hope you might both come back.

I don’t know why, but I remember the last time I saw you. It is an image I shall always remember. I was vacuuming and, because you’ve never liked the loud droning of the machine, you were watching me from outside through the french windows.

It was in the half-light and I could see your white fur with the black spot on your back. You were sitting ­patiently, just watching, from the safety of the outside, your head turned round looking at me, your lovely big eyes waiting to see when it would be safe to come back inside. I don’t know if you will come back, or if you have gone for good. I don’t like to imagine the worst. I like to think that you and the other ­missing cat in our neighbourhood were good friends and ­decided to go off ­together on a big ­adventure of your own.

Whatever has ­happened to you, this letter is to say thank you for sharing your life for the five years you gave us and for all the ­little delights you’ve bestowed upon us. Our lives are richer for having known you; we’ll always remember you and hope that one day your pink nose will once again appear under the fence. Goodbye, lad.

:roll: