My dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. We moved and only saw him for two weeks of what turned out to be his last year on earth. Now I feel like I have failed him so terribly. How do you apologize to someone who is gone? How do you say I love you and I’m so sorry when their ears and their heart don’t exist anymore?

Dear Amy,

It’s 3am and we’ve just played Kansas City. Sleep will come, but not just yet. I’ve started reading some of the questions that have come into The Red Hand Files. I found yours, and I thought perhaps you could try this, it might be helpful.

Find a quiet spot where you can be alone and away from distractions, close your eyes, and picture your father. Then say these words, quietly or in your head –

You are my father
I am your daughter
I love you
I am sorry

You may feel uncomfortable or embarrassed when you do this because it seems from your question that you fundamentally believe that your father is gone, that his “ears and heart don’t exist anymore,” and that you are speaking to no one, a nothing, a void.

But perhaps, if you pay close attention, you may discover a part of you – a pulse of spiritual recognition, distant, hidden, neglected. This is the soul calling to you from beneath the compacted veneer of your unbelief. I believe, but I do not know, that this feeling is the eternalness of your father. I have spent nearly a decade in communion with this softly spoken presence – the impossibility of my sons, Arthur and dear Jethro – a faraway thing buried deep beneath my scepticism  becoming an emergent belief.

I suspect your father will hear your words, but I do not know. At the very least, by acknowledging the sacred and mysterious nature of things, these words will impact the general condition of the world, not to mention your own injured heart. I believe we must take our subtle spiritual intuitions seriously and view them as the quintessence that underlies the ordinary world. The rejection of the sacred is the fundamental reason for our existential discontent. “I love you” and “I am sorry” spoken into the universe are two sentiments forever worth declaring.

It’s 4am now, and I’ve been on the phone with a friend in London. He brings me the news. Kneecap are the new poster boys for freedom of expression; Jonny Greenwood has been cancelled for attempting to play with an Arab/Israeli artist; Farage has taken Runcorn and beyond; an Iranian terror plot has been foiled; and there is a dark and horrific story about a burning boy. The UK roils in its confusion, hypocrisy and discontent, yet all I can do at this brittle, late hour is miss my adopted homeland. I think of you, Amy, and your situation. I feel the answer to your question will always exist outside the world as it presents itself, beyond the matters of the day, distinct from the temporal. It will be found within the mysterious, the unsettled, and the sacred, that faraway and intangible place where truth and music and your father reside.

I hope you find some relief. I am sorry for your loss.

Love, Nick

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