grandad kit

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

For the first time, we finally get to see you

I am you other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are four years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Grandad is good with words, but not this time. Make no mistake, Nana Ann and I were so glad to finally get to see you for the very first time - and it's more than four years since you were born. It's hard to describe what it's like, seeing you for the first time. I know what it's like seeing my three children for the first time, and seeing your cousin Elaine for the first time, but that was always when they were tiny babies and had just been born. It was expected that I would be there and I was there as a father and as a grandfather, just a natural thing.

If things had been right between me and your Mam, we would have been able to see you very soon after you were born, when you were just a tiny little baby, and to see you from time to time, to have the joy of seeing you grow up and develop bit by bit. That has all gone, but seeing you once is better, so much better, than not seeing you atall. Nana Ann and I don't have any children, so the only grandchildren Nana Ann can see are mine - and there's only two of you! But even if there were lots of grandchildren, you would all be precious and we would want to see all of you from time to time.

It was lovely to see you. You are everything we had hoped for, a happy, lively boy with a sense of fun and curiosity about the world. But Nana Ann and I came away from your house sad as well as happy.

Now this is nothing you can understand, nor will you be able to understand it for many years yet. I hope that if you ever get to read these letters to an unknown grandson, you will understand. And, most of all, it's absolutely not your fault in any way. You are totally innocent of what has gone on and of what is happening now. Only when you get to be of an age and able to take decisions for yourself, then you'll have to take responsibility for what you say and do, but not until then.

The truth is, Nana Ann and I are thinking very seriously about what to do next. Right now, we can't see any way forward and - very, very sad, we can't see a way that we can get to be friends again with your Mam and Dad. It's not that we're trying to blame them, we are just looking at the situation and trying to judge what is the best for everyone, particularly for you. We don't want to do anything atall that might cause you pain or hurt, and most of all we don't want you to be dragged into a family quarrel, particularly a quarrel that seems to us to be over and done with and best forgotten.

So right now Nana Ann and Grandad don't know when or even if we will see you again. We are just going to let things lie still for a while. The way I feel now, I would like to draw a line under all this and get on with the rest of my life, as long or short as it may be. You can't allow a negative thing to drag you down and stop you from enjoying life and stop you from being useful to ourselves and to others.

So - it breaks my heart to say this - we may not see you again for a time, perhaps a long time, perhaps a long, long time. There's no use putting blame on anyone - no-one is perfect, and like anyone else we have made mistakes - but we have to move on. We don't want you to be subject to arguments and ill-feeling. Not that that happened today, but it seems to us that (apart from the great blessing of seeing you and holding your hand) there was nothing else to say and do towards mending the break, mainly between me and your Mam, my daughter. If these letters are produced as a book, by Grandad Kit of course because we would always want to protect your identity, you might see it by chance and you might realise it's you.

Still love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann