Dear Dad,

One year ago today, you took a dramatic exit from our lives.

What business was it of a man unsteady on his feet and unstable in his mind, to be out there, alone, lighting fires?

“None of yours,” was your last word on it, as you scuffled off into the dark, newspaper in hand.

Two days those fires burned. You might have been vindicated, were it not for that one misplaced step.

I can’t imagine you wanted to go that way. But you certainly went on your terms, determined not to be rendered less of the man you once were. Determined, perhaps, to be punished because of it.

Either way, you’re free now, Dad. I get that. Free of the torment of a wasting body and mind. Free of the ghosts of your past.

It’s us they’re left to haunt, now. All that unresolved pain and trauma. The desperate notes scrawled in the margins of your Bible give you away. The lines and crosses pointing at God’s infinite mercy and wrath. The only place you felt free not to scoff and sneer at the very humanity you bore.

There’s a part of you, I’m sure, would have been just a tickle chuffed with how you called us to attention on that day.

The trifecta of sirens echoing across the valley. The drone footage, six o’clock news and write up in the local rag. Shared and tagged and cry face emojied across time. You sure made up for a life of hiding on the sidelines.

You wouldn’t want us to linger here, though.

“Go on, get on with it,” you always used to say. Not wanting to draw attention to the pain you caused.

What are we left to get on with, exactly? What becomes of us, now that you’re gone?

It’s ironic, when you think about it. If you had lived the life you wanted, none of us would even be here. The life that was not your father’s choosing. The one that escaped the curse of the iron fist.

But here we are, making the best muddle of the one shot we got.

I choose to honour the man you were underneath your lifelong scars. An adventurous, nature loving, generous hearted, humble, honest-to-a-fault, kind, intelligent, observant, passionate, spiritual soul. I honour you, in the hope those best parts live on in me.