I’ve been writing to Emma for seven years now. Every week, sometimes more. Letters she’s never seen and may never see.
Started the week after contact stopped. I was sitting in my empty flat in Manchester, staring at her bedroom door that suddenly felt like a tomb, and I just… needed to talk to her somehow. So I grabbed an old notebook and started writing.
The first letter was angry, if I’m honest. Pages of “your mum has done this” and “I don’t understand why.” But then I read it back and thought — what if Emma finds these one day? What if she’s fifteen or twenty-five and discovers this box of letters from her dad? Do I want her first glimpse back into my heart to be full of bitterness?
So I tore it up and started again.
Now I write about everything. Her birthdays — she turned fifteen last month and I wrote about how I imagine she’s taller now, whether she still loves art like she did when she was eight. I tell her about the fox family that visits my garden because she always loved animals. When I see a sunset that takes my breath away, I describe it to her in detail because I want her to know I’m still noticing beauty even in this harsh landscape.
Sometimes I write memories. The day she learned to ride her bike on Heaton Park. How she used to fall asleep holding my thumb. The way she’d narrate everything when she was four — “Now Daddy is making toast. Now Daddy is putting butter on the toast.”
The act of writing keeps her close. When I put pen to paper, she’s right there with me again. Not the stranger she might be now, but my little girl who knew without question that I loved her.
I have three shoeboxes full now. Maybe she’ll read them someday. Maybe she won’t. But they exist. This record of a father’s love exists, and somehow that feels important.
The letters are for her. But if I’m being honest, they’re keeping me alive too.
I’ve been doing something similar for three years now. Not letters exactly, but a journal where I write to Jack and Lily. Started it after my therapist Susan suggested it might help with the constant ache of having words trapped inside me with nowhere to go.
Mine started angry too — pages of fury at their mum, at the lies, at how the system failed us all. But like you, I realised these might be the first glimpse my kids get back into my world. So I shifted to writing about them instead. About how proud I am, how much I wonder about who they’re becoming, memories of bedtime stories and Sunday morning pancakes.
The hardest part is writing on their birthdays. Jack turned twelve in October and I found myself describing the cake I would have made, the day out we would have had. It breaks me and sustains me at the same time.
Your letters are a beautiful gift, whether Emma reads them tomorrow or in twenty years. And you’re right — they’re proof that love doesn’t disappear just because contact does. That matters more than you know.
This absolutely broke me. I’ve been doing something similar with my twins - they’re 11 now and I haven’t seen them since they were 7. I started with voice messages on my phone, just talking to them like they were there, but then I switched to letters too because somehow putting pen to paper felt more… permanent? Like proof that this love existed even when they weren’t here to see it.
I write about the little things they used to do - how they’d argue over who got to press the elevator button, or the way they both had this habit of eating the marshmallows out of their cereal first. Sometimes I catch myself writing “remember when” and then I have to stop because what if they don’t remember? What if those memories are just mine now?
But you’re right about it keeping them close. When I’m writing, it’s like they’re eight again and still climbing into my bed on Sunday mornings. The letters are proof that we existed together, that it was real. Even if no one else remembers.
This is so beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.
I’ve been writing to my grandchildren for five years now - not letters exactly, but I keep a journal for each of them. Started it when contact stopped completely and I realised I might miss watching them grow up entirely. Like you, I had to learn to write love instead of loss, though some days that’s harder than others.
I started writing to my boys about four years in, when the silence was eating me alive. Wish I’d started sooner like you did.
I do the same thing — write about the little moments, the things I notice that I want to share with them. Yesterday it was the first snowdrops coming up in the park where we used to feed the ducks. I write like they’re still here, like they’re going to bound through the door any minute asking what’s for tea.
The memories are the hardest to write but also the most important. I don’t trust myself to remember everything perfectly anymore, so getting it down feels crucial. Like I’m preserving something sacred.
Those shoeboxes are treasure, honestly. Even if Emma never reads them, you’re keeping that connection alive and that matters more than you know.