I think perhaps it also has to do with love. If memory serves me well, this was a word that was not much used in our family. Well, never, really. “My father never told me that he loved me.” I heard this complaint from many wounded, maladjusted men in my later years and have to say that for a long time I judged them to be a bit of a whine. Alright, a major whine.
But I’ve come to understand that those words are in fact important.
We may have thought it needless to say them, that it sufficed among our family members to take the fact for granted. We all loved each other, didn’t we? You and “Mummy” and my sister Flora and myself? We may have surrendered to old English inhibitions and conventional embarrassment, in the belief that matters of the heart were of little importance and were not worth talking about.
But did we? Did we love each other? Did you love me? Did I love you? These are questions to which I long to know the answer.
Your son,
Peter
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