All that I now have left of the very wonderful Micheal, is a single photograph, a poem that he once wrote to my mother, his Michael Jackson CD of Thriller, and his military pin badge that he used to wear on his black beret. That's it. Just those small collection of personal things, along with my too small a collection of my memories of him.

Mum never properly explained why she chose to stay in England. All she ever said was that she "just couldn't do it".

To this day, I will never understand her reasons for letting Micheal go. To this day, I think it was the biggest mistake of her life. To this day, there's a part of me that will never forgive her for it.

After Micheal, mum moved to the area where my nan and gramp lived. A new start, of sorts. I was now ten, so the local primary school thought it a really good idea that I would be attending there, so I could make friends with the more local children, ready for when we all moved up to the local Secondary school.

I still saw my dear friend Lucy, and I was still working up at the stables with the very lovely Mr Tully. They were both helping me to get over my lost dreams of living in Texas with Micheal.

He had gone.

I was left behind.

So, I had to make the best of it...I had to start over.

After her decision to not go with Micheal, mum began clinging to the normalcy of her life—the occasional sex with my father, countless new boyfriends, volatile friendships, an inability to properly mother—her life was right back to the miserable start.

While my mum had been doing her thing, so had I.

My own independence had significantly grown. It had to. Being dependent on my mother was always such a bad idea, so I wanted to be far less dependent on her. I was getting older, my nan and gramp were now both within walking distance—I was getting on with my Micheal-less life.

I had made new and local friends. I had settled into my new school really well. At the wise young age of ten, I was pulling my life together, while my mum was tearing hers apart.

Her unhappiness, her aggression...they were back.

That aggression would be taken out on her friends, her boyfriends, my dad, my nan, myself and Jason. But Jason and I, we would stick up for one another. I'd stand in front of her while she would try to wallop my brother, and he would stand in front of her while she would try to wallop me.

That kind of shit, it hardens you.

I'd gotten so used to my mum's outbursts, that I'd hardened to them all. My resentment of her grew deeper, while my dislike for her grew stronger. Nan and gramp were my constant source of security and love. Mum would try to get into arguments with my nan, which usually ended with her being asked to leave by my gramp.

To which, mum did.

Mum always had an unsaid respect for my gramp.

A quiet regard for him.

Gramp wasn't my mum's biological father. Her real father was an Irish Catholic, who used to constantly beat my nan. Even when he kept getting my nan pregnant, that didn't ever stop any of those cruel beatings.

Mum's father was an alcoholic. He was also violent. He gave my nan four boys and one girl. After getting exceedingly drunk and aggressive one night, he set fire to the caravan that they all used to live in. As that caravan burnt to nothing but ashes, as too, did his marriage to my nan.

She had finally taken enough from him.

Her will to be free of that drunk bully, had finally kicked in.

My nan was eventually free of him, but I don't think my mum ever was. I remember my mum once sitting me down on a wooden bench outside of a Post Office somewhere, beside this smelly and drunk old tramp. "This is your gramp." She seriously told me.

I can't remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was very young, but I know I had held onto that memory because it had upset me so much at the time. "No he isn't." I had defiantly replied to my mum with a childly grimace. "My gramp is back at his house." Every emphasis was on the word my.

My gramp, was my gramp.

The only gramp I had.

How dare anyone suggest otherwise?

I think mum loved her dad, regardless of the man that he had gone on to be. Maybe she saw a lot of him, in her adult self? Maybe, she felt guilty because he had ended up a smelly drunk, drinking cheap lager outside of a Post Office? She never really spoke of him. But on that very strange day, she wanted me to meet her real father. That strange day, would be the one and only time that I would ever meet my mum's real dad. And to be honest, it was one too many times.

As I said before, my gramp was my gramp.

It was his glasses I would always pull off his face when I was a baby. It was on his knee that I was bounced upon when I was that same little baby. It was him who always bought me a pickled egg back on a Friday night after he'd been to the Social Club. He was the one who would wait for me every Sunday, looking so proud in his car while I finished the last of my jobs at Mr Tully's. He was the one who taught me how to drive. He was the one who I wanted to walk me down the aisle when I got married. And he was the one who had my photograph kept in the back of his old leather wallet.

Yes, gramp...he was indeed, my dear gramp.