This made me quite weak with Joy today .
Daddy please print and keep it with you always.
We had a little help from our friend in primary five.
Dear Dad
You have gone really a long time without being thanked.
I am not taking about thanks for things like good treats but rather the thanks we owe you for shaping us into the girls we are today.
Thank you for teaching us what we deserve and for not letting us settle for anything less while the people here were telling us we are nothing, we are poor. You where there to build our confidence.
You have showed us what our great qualities are and helped us feel unique.
Without you daddy we would not be nearly as ambitious, outgoing or strong like building our home and needing a car.
It is hard to workhard when it is just for ourselves but so easy when it is for you daddy.
All at school nothing makes us happier than getting a good grade back because we know we have to get home to tell you.
With everything we do, you give us a purpose.
You are the prime example of what putting your family first looks like.
If us wanting something means that you can not get what you want.
You will always sacrifice.
Daddy being your daughters has not always been full of happiness and encouragement.
But that is what makes you intergral part of our lives.
Rather than sugar coating things and always telling us we are the perfect children, you always call us out when we are wrong.
But what separates you from other daddies is that instead of just knocking us down you help us to improve.
You help us figure out our faults and you stand by us every step of the way as we work to fix them.
As we are part of you, we look to the future knowing that we will carry a part your soul with us everywhere we venture.
We love you so much daddy.
Your daughters
Tyra and Rebecca Lainton
Dear Grandpa.
I wish we had a collection of memories spend together that shall never be forgotten.
The memories that we can treasure with our hearts and soul.
We wish we can say thank you for helping us grow into the young girls we are today.
But we have never got a chance to meet each other granddad.
They say spending time with our your grandparents fills us with strength, support and love like no other because you are the ones who know how to comfort, spoil and encourage us and the only price to enter your home and heart is just a hug and a kiss.
You believe less in discipline and more in spoiling us and less concerned in rules but much more with handing out treats.
They say grannies (sic) love is endless as part of you are parents, teachers and some even best friends.
And that is all we want to have with you our grannies.(sic)
You are our grandparents and the source of the most complete sweet love we have in our lives.
We love so much grandpa.
Your granddaughters
Tyra and Rebecca Lainton
There are loads of even more lovely letters to darling Granma too – now living in a lovely retirement community near Penkridge.
Tyra is eight and has a British passport but lives in Uganda, which expired and its renewal being caught up in the hostile environment policy with all her paperwork lost by the Passport Office when it was first made and despite the British Embassy in Beirut scanning every page of her old one and notarising it and the (thankfully ex) head of the passport office, in a classic ‘Computer says no’ letter writing to the very helpful Geoffrey Cox Mp (now attourney general) when he was my constituency Mp that I need to produce her original passport and any child protection risks she faces in Uganda are my fault; despite being told many times the unavailability of her original passport – lost Airflight baggage – (to an email address they gave many times which was wrong and is only for outgoing mail). She has never seen her grandparents in the flesh both of whom are now in care.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions 