Dear Loved Ones,

THERE are feelings in time people will always remember. Maybe not the particularities or every final detail, but that feeling of contentment, of fulfilment, never fully escapes the mind of the loved and the mind of the loving.

A feeling when all was well, a time when all our troubles didn’t seem to matter so much in the context of what we were doing.

Or so I often hear it described. The truth is, no matter how long one perceives to have searched for this sanctity, it has always appeared unattainable to unremitting failures such as myself.

This is really how I have up until now and, rather unfortunately, probably will forever view myself: not quite living up to the potential I had sparingly shown in the past, nor the potential I could have achieved in the future.

I thought this to be the self-evident tenet of my life, and I am really upset that I would ever let myself believe this. I was evading earlier when I said ‘‘or so I often hear it described’’, when I implied that I don’t feel, never have felt or maybe even lack the capacity for these feelings.

For I have felt them, I still feel them a great deal more intensely than I can put into words.

And it scares me, being able to set aside personal feeling for the joy of somebody else, someone I’m scared to death will inevitably realise that they should share the precious fragments of their life with someone more deserving of their joys than I.

To whomever may be in need of this and for whatever time they may need it, this is both an apologetic letter for you and an unwavering commitment to you.

I’m sorry for the glaring weaknesses of my character and my temperament and my many other overbearing inadequacies.

Sorry may not make up for a wrong that has been done or the wrongs which have been or may yet be done, but at least take solace and security in knowing that even though I may not exhibit it nor highlight it with great fluidity, even though I may hide it or mask it with fleeting temerity, remorse will be a permanent fixture of our association and I love you.

And let it be further known that this is a love not merely born out of pleasure or happiness, but a deeper love out of virtue; from the good that you do and you are, to the good you make me feel when I think of you, the good that I feel when I am with you. With you always. Christopher Doherty, Belfast