6th May 2010 - Thursday

The garden is so beautiful now, Grandad. It was sunny earlier and I went outside. I walked right down to the summer house, because I wanted a chair. As I went I had to pass the apple tree and it was filled with blossom. The little petals fell down as I walked underneath and carpeted the floor.

I carried on walking. The flowerbed on the right is filled with forget-me-nots. They made me think of you. There are so many of them: millions of the tiny little blue flowers. I remember how there used to be some at the cottage in the front garden. I didn't know what they were called. I was only a child.

Now we have thousands. I picked a small bunch later, and took them inside. They're in a little vase on the table.

I reached the summer house and I took out a chair. It wouldn't unfold at first. When it did I put it out on the lawn and I lay there for a while. It was good to feel the sunshine. I'm like you, Grandad. You never liked the cold either, did you? And when it snowed you got worse. I remember Mum telling me.

I got bored of just lying still. I'm not the kind of person who can do that, lie in the same place for hours. So I got my notebook and I started to write. One side of my neck got tanned and the other stayed white.

But I couldn't stay there forever. I got up and I avoided the bird mess on the lawn. I picked the forget-me-nots and struggled with folding up the chair while holding my notebook and jumper. I put the things away and went inside, finding the tiny vase and dropping the flowers inside it.

They're blue for how I felt when I heard the news on Sunday. They're small for how I was when we took those walks together, when we went on the beach and made sandcastles with a spoon and paper cup, because we didn't have a bucket and spade. They're beautiful for your life and everything you did.

And they're named for my promise. I won't forget you.

You're always in my heart.

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I wrote you a letter and it never got sent. When I heard the news it broke me. Now you'd never read it.

So I read through the letter again and I cried. I'd named it 'last letter' but it would never be the last. I'd always write another one.

And I started to write you a letter each day, to tell you how I was and how the world was.

Grandad, I hope you can see these. These letters.

updated May 6 '10 by delorfinde