Kate & Emily

This is an excerpt transcript from ‘The Best Christmas Present Ever’ with Hugh Dennis, broadcast on Radio 2 22^nd December 2009

‘I grew up in a fairly normal family with a mum, dad and a sister. And then when i was about 3 dad left. I think I remember a conversation when dad said he had to move away to get closer to work. So were left with my mum and she remarried when I was 7 and we moved over to where my stepdad lived and so it meant a big change of school and friends and things and that was quite an unhappy sort of time but we settled in and started afresh really. 

I was still seeing my dad every Saturday or Sunday for a few hours and then i got to about 12 and i decided that I was finding it really hard seeing him on a weekend because I enjoyed seeing him, but I felt guilty for that. I felt guilty wanting to see my dad and spend time with him when he’d made my mum so unhappy. And my mum would never day directly ‘I wish your dad wasn’t part of your life’ but she was clearly stressed when he came round. So in the end that, coupled with the fact I was getting my own interests as a 12 year old wanting to spend time with my friends and things, I just said ‘actually dad I don’t want to see you anymore’. I’d been saying it to my mum for a few weeks ‘I don’t want to see him anymore’ and she said ‘look if i tell him he’s not going to believe me. He’s going to think that I’m putting words into your mouth so if you want to do it you’re going to have to tell him. If you’re grown up enough to make that decision then you’re going to have to tell him.’ So i did and it was a really hard thing to do because I wasn’t emotionally or verbally capable of expressing myself. I couldn’t say all the reasons I was wanting to, all i could say was ‘dad I don’t want to see you anymore’. Dad said ‘right then’ and got up and went.

When I was 28 and had my little boy he bought so much perspective to me and that made me think then that actually dad didn’t mean to cause the stress and anxiety and long term problems that he has by not being there and he deserves a second chance, I’d like to make my own mind up about him. I’d like to meet him and talk to him about the effect that him leaving had on me and to see if he knows, and does he have any photos of me, has he kept anything from when I was little, did I mean anything to him? Maybe he doesn’t think about me, maybe I’m part of his past.’

She found her dad again with the help of the Salvation Army Family Tracing Unit. He was delighted to hear from her. ‘I didn’t know what to call him when I first wrote to him, dad didn’t sound right as i didn’t feel he’d earnt that, but using his name wasn’t natural either so I just started with hello.’ 

They met and are now catching up on missed time, counting their blessings and making the most of their family future. 

‘We recognised each other immediately and I just said ‘hi dad’ and it was like time stood still, we held each other and cried. It was like a jigsaw piece settled in. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed him and how much he was still my parent and my dad and it was a big piece of my life that was there and I didn’t realise how much he’d been missing. It was lovely to see him and to know immediately that it felt right and all those feelings of unconditional love that I will have had since I was small were still there, they’d just got very clouded by circumstances, emotions and family politics in the meantime, so it was like being a little girl again with her dad’