A letter to my 27 year old self
Dear Nia (27 years old)
It is approximately 8am on Friday 7th February 2020. Your Dad is waving to you out the front window as you arrive home to your family house before a rare day of (pre-pandemic) ‘working from home’ begins. As usual, he followed your journey on the ‘Life 360’ app to make sure you arrived safely. In the evening, you will be enjoying a drink in The Masons Arms with your Mum, Dad and Brother, before picking up a Thai takeaway on the way home. I’m writing to let you know that this will be the last evening you ever have together as a family.
On Sunday 23rd February 2020, life as you know it will never be the same.
You won’t ever feel the same Nia again. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to come as a huge, unwelcome shock. It’s not going to be something you can ever fix. And it’s going to be entirely out of your control. But trust me, you will grow into a better person from it, in time.
On this day, you’ll land into Heathrow after a weekend in Budapest celebrating your good friend’s hen party. You’ll walk off the plane into arrivals to be unexpectedly greeted by your Mum and a couple of her friends walking towards you, in what looks like slow motion. Eyes glazed with tears. A sense of confusion combined with fear and panic will rush through your head, frantically ideating how the next few moments will unfold. Your Mum will take hold of your hands to tell you, “It’s your Dad. He’s died”.
You will spend the next few weeks, even months, in what will feel like a fictional bubble. You will experience a pain so deep, you never thought possible. You will burst into tears at the most unpredictable moments. You won’t pay much attention to anything else going on in the world, as though humanity has been paused. You’ll worry about how life can ever progress with someone so significant missing from it. And there’ll barely be a minute in the day you won’t be thinking about your Dad, trying to work out why this happened so tragically, so finitely, and whether you could have done anything to prevent it.
Your life will be abruptly put into perspective. The job you work so hard at, always pushing yourself for the next achievement, will suddenly feel less critical. The guy whose attention you always wanted but who never chose you, will blissfully phase into insignificance. The social pressures you’ve constantly felt to have certain elements of your life in place by a particular age, will gradually suppress into irrelevance. None of this is important.
You will gain a new level of appreciation for human connection (which won’t be easy as the world is about to enter a global pandemic). You will feel a profound desire to help others who are in greater need. And you will experience immense gratitude for having the most incredible family and friends around you who remind you every day of what truly matters.
Two whole years on from that dreaded Sunday, your Dad will still be gracing your thoughts every single day. In fact, rest assured, you will still be able to remember the sound of his voice in your head. You will be asking yourself, “what would Dad do in my situation right now?” when you face challenging decisions. I’m sorry to have to tell you, there will be occasions when you look forward to sharing your news with your Dad, and your breath will be taken away for a split moment when you realise he’s not there to tell.
Time won’t ever fully heal a wound as deep and as painful as this, but I want you to know that you will be ok. Your Dad will always hold a special place in your mind and in your heart. He would still have wanted you to make the most of the lifetime you have ahead left to enjoy, because not everyone has the gift to do so.
So choose love. Choose laughter. And never, ever forget that “the world needs more like Brian”.
This letter was inspired by author Mark Lemon’s letter to his 12 year old self
