Dear Dad,
In The Sloop Inn with a Doombar Rock ale from Cornwall. You always said you loved it here, your childhood on the beach, first experiences of love, probably. Bought an ice cream, cornish double cream with a flake, remember you saying your first work was selling ice cream on the beach, 14 years old. The ice cream man reminded me of you, or maybe a calmer, more content version of you, selling ice cream and other supplies in a little shop. I often wonder what you escaped from, your father’s blindness, you mother’s strictness, girl who broke your heart? Or maybe it was not escape? I couldn’t seem to get answers, but maybe you answered me and I’ll know it when I understand my own self. I wish you had come back here with mom and I. We are releasing your ashes in Carbis Bay tomorrow. Some are with the dogs and cats in Italy and the rest will go to Brazil. Wherever, you will live on inside me. Birds, the seagulls, are flying outside. I always think of you when I hear them. You are not marooned like us anymore. Fly free. I love you.
—Simon