This is a letter to Laurie from his daughter Rachel Dear Dad, I hope you are OK where you are. I often wonder where you are now, and if you can see me, and see how I’m doing. I’m doing OK now. I often think of you and how you spent your last moments - what the last thought was that went through your mind, what you were puzzling about, whether it was about physics or computer programming, or whether it was about music that you loved, or whether it was about Mum, or Katherine, John, Patrick, or me. I often wonder whether you heard the car before it hit you. Whether you had time to turn around, see it coming. It happened so fast that all the experts said you wouldn’t have had time. It hit you from behind; you wouldn’t have seen it coming. I wish I could have sat with you when you were lying in the hedge. Comforted you, said goodbye. Touched your hair. Held your hand. Like you held mine when I was a little girl. But you were dead. Alone in the rain. For ten minutes before they found you. I had sent you a text message - the same minute you died. You’d left your phone at home though. I was miles away, but thinking of you. I think about you every day. I wonder if, wherever you are now, you are thinking of me. I think about the jokes we shared, the fun we had, places we went, music we played. You brought me up to know the difference between right and wrong, and you trusted the law to punish those who did wrong, and protect those who were innocent. Your trust was misplaced. The person who did this to you was never punished. He gets to live, and breathe, and see his daughter, and his wife, and to laugh, and to go about his daily business, and to drive his new expensive car (he wrote the other one off at the same time he did you) and to have the luxury of pretending this didn’t happen. A luxury I cannot have. You also brought me up to know how to forgive. I forgive the person who did this to you. Unless he is completely inhuman, this person will know that he has done wrong. This person will have you on his conscience for the rest of his life. All he has to do to be forgiven is to look me in the eye, and say two words: I’m sorry. If he offered me his hand to shake, I couldn’t turn him away. The comforting thought I have that has let me come so far in life, is that although I am a different person - half of me came from you. And I can’t help but feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of your life. You still live on through me. With all my love, Rachel x