Book 4, Letter 10, to my Father. Two weeks have passed since your death.

Hey Dad,

It's Tuesday so I'm back at your place. I'm cooking the food you left for me, a chicken and corn dish which is simmering while I write. I'm drinking your wine. Wren is playing solitaire on your computer, he sings as he plays, music pouring out of him, just like it always poured out of you. The house still smells like you, my hands smell like your hands. The dust still holds your finger prints and the wine glass still holds the memory of your lips. You are here with me, in me.

I saw your next door neighbour. She said that the last time she spoke to you, perhaps a couple weeks before your death, you said to her that you were happy with your life, happy with your home.

I am happy with your life. Sitting at your kitchen table as I write, I am crying, unstoppable tears. Your wine is sweet. My grief is sweet. You gave me so much in life, and you continue to provide me with all the necessities of life. You have given me your home, the very seat of your kingdom and all the mementos I could ever ask for.

Wren and I will sit down with dinner to watch the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We watched the first two with you before you left us, so we have returned to finish the series, and to continue our life with you, despite your absence.

I thought I was fine. I thought my grief may have been fleeting, but of course, it will last the rest of my life. It is your lasting gift to me, this bottomless well of emotion from which I may draw. The water of your love, Dad, I will drink it deep. I will quench my thirst for life, I will live as you hoped I might live: with passion, music and love.

Thank you today. Thank you tomorrow. Thank you forever.

With gratitude and respect.

Your loving son, Morgan

PS. I have been reading the book you leant me, The Jungle and the Sky by CS Forester. There is a passage I would like to share, since it seemed you must have had this in mind when you suggested I read the book. It concerns a drummer playing his drum in a village in the jungle...

Tali had perfected the rhythm he gad been striving for. There was a neat series of beats, and then a hesitation, like a man stumbling, a recovery, and then another stumble. A man could hardly keep from laughing when he heard that rhythm. It was a good joke, something really funny, catching and captivating. The dancers were grinning with pleasure and excitement. They had formed round Tali in a semi-circle, and the dance to suit the rhythm rapidly evolved itself. They closed slowly in on him with mock tenseness and dignity. Then a sudden quick interchange of places, a backward swirl, and they were ready in the nick of time to begin the cycle again. It was an exciting and stimulating dance, amusing and yet at the same time intensely gratifying artistically. People came swarming from all points to join in, and the semi-circle grew wider and wider. Soli...leapt into the centre.

'Hey!' he shouted. 'Hey, hey, hey!'

He was up on his toes, posturing picturesquely. He reeled to one side, he reeled to the other side, while behind him the crowd neatly shifted in time with him, interchanging in a geometrical pattern vastly gratifying. Tali thumped and thundered on his drum. His eyes were staring into the vacancy over the heads of the dancers. He touched the side of the drum with his elbow to mute it, and it's tone changed from loud mirth to subtle mockery.

'Hey!' shouted the crowd.

Tali introduced a new inflexion into the rhythm. He made no break in it ; perhaps not even a metronome could have measured the subtle variation of time. But now the drumbeat told of his tragedy, of vivid drama. Soli in the centre caught the change of mood and found words for it.

'The tall tree totters!' he intoned. 'Run, men, run!'

The drum thundered, the dancers interchanged.

'Run, men, run!' roared the crowd, catching the final beats.

'It hangs upon the creepers,' sand Soli in his nasal monotone. 'Down it falls!'

Beat – beat – shuffle – shuffle.

'Down it falls!' roared the crowd... … …

Thanks for the book Dad, it's great.   I'll let you know when I finish it.