Until the loss of my Gramp, death was something that I had never directly experienced in my life. On many an occasion, I would think about losing him. I had often feared it. I'd tell myself that I'd fall apart and wouldn't ever be able to go on. Of course, when Gramp did die, I did go on...I had to.

I had my own family to think about.

I couldn't fall apart and not go on.

Losing someone we love, will leave tiny holes inside of us. No one can see them. They don't stop us from functioning. Yet they remain inside of us, unseen but forever there. We end up becoming functioning, incomplete human beings. The more loss, the more holes.

Some years after that loss of my beloved Gramp, I would go on to lose my dad to cancer. It happened quickly and it happened in a way that took me a while to get over. I don't really want to bring it up all over again, because I have already written out the bitter pain and disappointment surrounding the death of my father somewhere else. All I will say is that even though my dad didn't always do enough to be a good dad to me, in his own simple way, I know that dad did love me. I also know that if his wife would have allowed me to be fully immersed in his life, I would have been. Only, she didn't. She couldn't see past the affair that dad had been involved in with my mum. I was the end result of that affair. I epitomised her husband's infidelity. So, I wasn't to ever be a part of their family. I wasn't allowed to be a part of my father dying and I wouldn't ever be informed of his death.

I would eventually find out for myself why dad hadn't been returning any of my calls or my texts to him. I would go on to find out that painful reason a few months after he had died. After an unsettling dream that I'd had, I called nan and asked her to ring my dad's former business partner, because I believed that my dad had died. About five minutes later, nan called me back and was crying. "You're right, Mary Rose...your dad is dead."

His loss, wasn't a sad one in the beginning. When I first found out, I could only feel anger.

Anger at him.

Anger at his wife.

Anger at cancer.

Then the disappointment set in.

Disappointment at him.

Disappointment at his wife.

Those two emotions ate away at me for months and months, until I decided to write it all out. I had already written three novels, I knew that I could pour all of those emotions into my fourth novel. Writing has always been my therapy, that novel was to be my therapy for all that had sadly happened with dad.

It worked.

My pain and disappointment had all been written out of me. Yes, the way in which he had died and the way in which I found out about him dying still hurt at times, but it no longer coursed through me like an incurable disease—it no longer ate into my days and nights.

As I've said before, dad was a simple and uncomplicated man. As a boy, he was driving tractors and small trucks on farmland. He grew into a man who had little education, but he knew everything that there was to know about commercial vehicles and cars.

Dad did his best, I know that now.

Mum once told me that she couldn't be 100% sure whether I was his daughter or not. Why she would say such a thing, you would honestly have to ask her that yourself, for I'd never give her the satisfaction of thinking that what she had told me would make me question who my father was, because deep in my soul, I believed that dad really was.

I believe I am very much like him.

In me, a little bit of him is still very much here—his quirky and downright silly sense of humour, his love of history, his blue eyes, his dimples and his deep laughter creases—I have them all.

Dad wasn't the greatest dad, but I wasn't the greatest daughter either. He also wasn't a bad man, it's just that he could have done so much more. His death hurt me. Not being told about his death, hurt me so much more. That kind of bitter hurt will take chunks from out of the armour of the strongest human heart, if you let it. I wasn't going to let that happen to my heart. My heart had already withstood the death of my Gramp, I knew that it would also withstand the death of my dad.

Me and my strong heart thought that we had a really good hold on that thing called loss, but some losses, are just too difficult a loss.