Sunday Independent LETTERS SERIES

Hello there, Ang,

WELL, I have put off writing this letter for so long but at last I am doing it; but where to begin is the question? I suppose back in 1979 in an establishment in the north side of Dublin where, in a busy kitchen, we came face to face and we both smiled in recognition, even though we had often come face to face in the past because we were both far away from home and alone. We rejoiced in finding each other. The happy feeling that day, knowing that I had made a friend who came from the same neck of the woods as myself, was a great feeling.

Roll on the years of solid friendship where our families and school friends gelled together and our circle grew to such a large happy gathering of male and female buddies. The years of sharing accommodation (flats) and weekends away and trips to places such as the Isle of Man and London made our friendship stronger. We knew everything about each other and never tired of chatting into the early hours of the morning for all those 36 years.

Both being civil servants meant that transfer back home was always inevitable, so that day when you rang me from work, which was not unusual, and gave me the news of your impending move back home to where a very important man was part of your life, I suddenly found myself with a huge void in my life. My own life took a turn around this time as I met the man introduced by yourself and we have been married now for 25 years.

We went through the next 30 years of constant contact and regular meetings and having our children together and the amazing joy when your children and my children became such close buddies and the bond between our two families was so strong. It was a joy to see the next generation carry on what had started with two young girls in a strange place in a big city.

I always knew that you were the person who was seen and not heard. You were not a person who wanted the limelight or credit of any description and modesty was such a strong moral part of your personality. It was with these morals that you reared your gorgeous family, who I try to keep in touch with as much as possible.

The real purpose of this letter is to share the wonderful legacy you have here. From the devoted man you adored for approximately 40 years, who looked after you in your short illness with such care and love, and the way he will still keep your family going, and the children that you would be so proud of in the way they have carried on and achieved what you always wanted for them, without showing any sign of the struggle that young children have to endure when they lose a parent in their young life.

I am not writing their names on this letter because, like their mom and dad, they are so full of modesty and do not hold big notions of themselves in any way, so seeing their names in black and white would embarrass them hugely.

But I know that you are missed every single day in the lives of so many people, but we keep on going and bring the memories along with us. Your name is mentioned not just every day, but every minute of every day.

M Naughton, Claregalway, Co Galway

Dear John and Doreen,

ICOULD refer to you as my grandparents, but I have no idea how you would have preferred me to refer to you, as I have no memory of your voices, what you both enjoyed doing, or what you were even like. Photographs offer the only proof of your existence.

I miss you both. It is weird to miss someone you never met? Do you think that I am weird? I have so many questions and it seems like they’ll never be answered. If you can see me from heaven, if heaven is real, can you feel what I’m feeling? I hope you’re not watching me all the time; I don’t want you to see how stupid I can be or to witness the mistakes I make.

I hope you are both proud of me, although I’m just a normal girl. I haven’t accomplished anything amazing to make you proud. Despite that, I want you to know I’m a very mixed-up, odd teenager who makes too many mistakes and has no idea what she’s doing with her life or where it will take her next.

I have a great family, great friends and I’ve got my entire life ahead of me. What more could I possibly ask for? I’d ask for more days than both of you were given.

This letter is to say thanks. I’m writing this not only for the chance to win a voucher, but to write down finally how I feel. I can talk about anything to people in person, but never this.

I really hope that one day I can make you proud. I hope that you can see all this crazy stuff that’s going on. I look forward to meeting you both some day. I love you both, sleep tight. Michelle Michelle Bertsch, aged 14, Arklow, Co Wicklow

My Dear Grandfather,

YOU are my shining sun, my smile and my soul. I’m so sad because my letter never reached you, however I strongly believe that you hear me and you see me. You passed away a long time ago, almost 30 years, but I always speak to you in my dreams and in my thoughts. I remember very well how we spent time together. You taught me: “The world is yours!” And you were right. You taught me: “Respect older people” and I really thank you for that important advice. You taught me: “Never give up and always smile to the entire world.”

Your words bring only good things into your life and you definitely take it back.

I always remember everything, the tone of your voice, your hair and of course your eyes — deep blue, like the ocean, wise eyes. I’m writing this letter to say thank you. Because my son is very like you, he is your copy. He has blond hair and blue eyes, not like his parents. Sometimes I have goose bumps when he is looking at me just the way you did. He has your habits, too. That’s incredible because my son was born 25 years after your death.

I know I’m still feeling your help and your presence... or maybe it is you. I love you so much, my soul! Your little girl, Tryna. Tryna Drzeuinska, Ballyconnell, Co Cavan

Dear Dad,

YOU and mam had just been racing and you both were so happy together with your five wonderful children, two girls and three boys. We are all adults now but never wanted for anything.

It was November 3, 2000 — you collapsed at home in the bathroom and you were brought into hospital. You were in hospital for three weeks, then passed away at the age of 65.

My dad, my hero. I just couldn’t take it in. We were all with you to the very last minute. I always told you how much I loved you and your last words to me were, “Annette, you are very kind”.

I remember all the good times when I was six years old and I asked Santie for Tiny Tears. All you said was that we will see what Santie can do.

I was sick that night with excitement over Santa. Next morning you brought me down stairs to see what Santie brought me. I just didn’t get one thing. I got four things.

A desk and chair, a black board, you said look under the Christmas tree and there was Tiny Tears. I hugged and kissed you so much. It was like winning the Lotto.

I am still talking about this at the age of 40; little things like this are priceless.

All we wanted were the simple things in life Dad. You were my hero and such a wonderful Dad. I will always love you. Your loving daughter, Annette Annette O’Brien, Newbridge, Co Kildare

Dear Martin,

THAT day Professor Reynolds said he wished he had better news. The prognosis was not good. One month was all you had to live. I felt the world shatter around me. I couldn’t speak, or cry or move. I could only look at you sitting up in the hospital bed.

You know I said not a word for a long while. How you must have felt! The shock. You that loved life, loved your place in the country, the dog, the cats, the hens. The barns, the bog.

Cancer wasn’t something to have hit our family before. You were the one that had to carry the lead. I couldn’t believe how you were so uncomplaining; you remained so despite all the trauma of the cancer.

Your determination to fight this disease was not to be. It was gone too far, as you said afterwards yourself, the clock of life is set the day we are born. It must have been your time, only 49.

I often feel as if you are around the house. One Saturday morning at around 10 o’clock, the time you usually called, I heard the front door opening. You always turned around when you shut the door. I heard the footsteps coming down the hall. I thought, “That can’t be Martin!” I went out of the kitchen to see who it was and there was nobody there. Did you call in? I hope you are happy with God. Mam. Name and address with Editor

Dear Mammy and Daddy,

IHOPE this letter (from California USA, 1993) finds you both well. We are fine here. It’s very hot, even though it’s only March. I know we write to one another every week but I wanted this letter to be a bit different. Every letter I sent tells you of our everyday lives along with recent photos of Cian, who you have yet to meet. We will be home in April for a month and I can’t wait for you to meet your grandson for the first time.

Since Cian was born in December a light bulb has gone on in my head. I have all of a sudden realised what it is to be a parent and the enormous responsibility. I find myself asking: “How did mammy and daddy do this with five of us?” I think about the fact that you had three children under the age of three to begin with, then four years later I arrived and my baby sister five years later. You have gone way up in my estimation!

Thank you for the gift of my life. I embrace it and hope I do you proud. We never had much money or material things, but I never saw that. We always had enough food, plenty of home baking and a loving, supportive home. You taught us right from wrong, to always do our best, be positive, to “do the job right or don’t do it at all”. That people and family were the most important things in our lives.

You didn’t tell us how to live a good life — you lived and let us watch you do it. Now that I’m a parent myself, I want to say a huge thank you for all you have done. I hope I can honour you by passing on your legacy.

Our lives are in America for the moment and it breaks my heart that you haven’t met Cian yet. I’m so looking forward to our visit. We will have to make a decision down the road as to where we want to raise our family and I hope and pray we will make the right one for the right reasons. We will let our inner compasses guide us.

Thank you again for all that you are and all you have given me. I love you both.

Judith. Rathoath, Co Meath

Dear Much Afraid,

IFELT I needed to put pen to paper (July 1996) to tell you how different your life could have been, a life free of fear. But Much Afraid did what she was told, worked to the bone to achieve self-esteem, admiration and worth from being the best to the point of exhaustion. Because Much Afraid wanted to be liked, please people, to receive love back from doing.

Because if Much Afraid didn’t she wouldn’t have bought the house, the cars, the hols, the life to fit in, afraid to let go and be herself, her real self.

What happens when you are Much Afraid is that you conform, obey, do.

You function perfectly, you achieve, you go above and beyond to be accepted, to extremes because if Much Afraid didn’t what would happen?

The fear would be worse, the rejection, it won’t be perfect enough to the world outside. So, sorry for wasting all those years when you could have been yourself, the real self.

You were so lead by Much Afraid. So glad I didn’t send this letter. Didn’t want you to feel I rejected you. When I look back I see changes in Much Afraid, I see strength, confidence, joy, freedom, self-love. So glad for you, my sweet, precious child. Love you always. Love, Not so much afraid now. Portmarnock, Dublin

Dear Hugh Leonard,

IN your column of the 19th you asked if any of your readers would remember the two-reel comedies. Well, I for one remember them quite well. Edgar Kennedy drawing his hand over his face in frustration was his trademark. I am of the same vintage as yourself and like you attending the cinema was one of the week’s highlights. I must confess that I was not a regular week goer. You see, my father was only paid on a monthly basis, but my brother and myself got our monthly four pence for the pictures. In between, we managed occasionally to acquire the four pennies by selling jam jars and porter bottles to Harry Lipman. We lived in the Stoneybatter area and our local was the Broadway Cinema, known only as the ‘Manor’, it being situated in Manor Street.

Like so many of my economic background, I started work at an early age and I was now able with regular pocket money to attend the pictures on a more constant basis.

The two-reelers you mention usually filled in the programme when the ‘movie’ was a ‘big picture.’ Apart from the couple you mention, Hugh, was there not a ‘Stranger than Fiction’ and of course not forgetting James A Fitzpatrick’s travelogue — “And we know sometime we’ll return to this paradise on earth” or words to that effect.

In an earlier column you referred to Franklin Pangborn, him with the Bernard Allen jowls. Like yourself I often wonder how many would remember the adventures of Chester Morris as ‘Boston Blackie’ or Sidney Toler’s Charlie Chan and No 1 Son.

On Sunday, as mentioned, the gap between the two pictures was filled by a trailer and the ‘folly-and-upper’. Having missed the sequel by not having the four pence I would anxiously ask on Monday at school if the ‘chap’ survived the fall down the cliff or some other hazardous misfortune.

Well, Hugh, I know you live in Dalkey but perhaps we could meet some afternoon in one of your hostelries where we could always reminisce of our student days in the University of Hollywood, where we learned our history from Eastern European professors and discovered that the real-life desperados were really good guys at heart.

Pat Fleming Lindsay Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 9

Dear Mr Social Welfare Officer,

THE year was 1963, four years after scraping a pass in my Leaving Certificate, when I walked into your office in Gardiner Street Labour Exchange, forlorn and despondent, with my blank unstamped social welfare card that told its own story, together with my tale of woe.

Four years of rejection. Failing the entrance exams for all these so-called plumb jobs at that time: CIE, ESB, Post Office, insurance companies and banks, to mention a few.

Despondent, I went to the UK and worked in bars, slaughterhouses and restaurants, too proud to continue sponging off my parents.

On returning home, I decided, in desperation, that a new approach was necessary to kickstart my career.

I exaggerated my employment status and embellished my CV and landed the job of my dreams.

But now I had another hurdle to overcome, yes, my blank social welfare card which would expose my deceit.

You listened attentively to my plight, not saying one word, and then slowly tore up my blank social welfare card into little pieces. “Go down stairs and ask them to issue you with a new one because this one got lost. God loves a trier,” you said.

Thank you so much for cutting through that red tape. That single kind act got me on the bottom rung of a very successful career.

Yours in grateful appreciation, DB, Dublin 5 Full name and address with Editor

Dear Crystal

SINCE the day you arrived, you became the life and soul of our family. With your forceful personality you showed us much love and affection that lasted for over 18 years, never to wane in all that time.

If we were cross with you over some misbehaviour, one look into those doe eyes spoke right to the heart, knowing you’d get away with it again.

Crystal, as you look down on us from up there in bluesky doggie land, we have tried so hard, but failed to replace you as our ever-loving and adorable companion. You never failed to deliver a 100pc welcome-home performance, each and every time any of us opened the hall door to come home. It was always an overwhelming moment, that put the biggest smile on our face.

Now when we come across a Yorkshire terrier that looks anything like you, we stop and stare while the nostalgic memories comes flooding back. Like the day in the park when you chased a rabbit into its burrow and how long it took to dig a very distressed dog out; to console you the man in the ice cream van gave you a cone, sending us home with a very sick dog, never wanting to eat ice cream again, but it didn’t stop you chasing rabbits.

Do you remember on lots of occasions you stopped the postman from trying to open the front gate? Much to your amusement, but to his utter annoyance, calling you all the names he could think of; and that mad bark of yours, reserved only for him, tormenting him so much that he protested and didn’t deliver our post for a full week, until it was resolved and you became tolerant, almost to the point of ignoring his nervous walk up the driveway to the letter box. We love you forever, Crystal. Berni Wall and family. Dublin