Dear Ben ...

Hi Ben,

It's nine years today, so I'm just checking in—I feel like it’s been awhile since we last saw you. Funny about that.

Dad sent a text to your phone on Sunday but you didn’t reply. Funny about that too.

So it’s nine years and I am hoping that you’re doing okay ‘up there’—or wherever you are—up there, over there, behind a veil. Hope it’s a ball. Hope it’s a real ball.

But hey, I just wanted to let you know that after nine years, life here is still—offensive and impossible as it seems to me—going on without you!

And it has to be said, you have missed a whole lot. But do you know that already? Do you get our news up there? Or has this life become a misty memory like a dream? Have you forgotten us?

Because we haven’t forgotten you (as if).

You are, as I think you would expect, still very much alive to us. Your brothers and now also your nephews remind us of you often and in many different ways: your smile, your laughing voice, your broad shoulders (literally and figuratively), your listening ear and quietly confident advice, your unshakeable faith, your mix of cynicism and optimism, your interest in everything, your love of music, dancing, ice hockey, surfing (you name it, everything and more).

We have not forgotten the way you seemed to run at life head on, like a bull-at-a-gate when you were young and like it (life that is) was something to conquer when you were older.

We remember your fierce independence and how you held onto your dignity and autonomy even in your last sad weeks when struggling for breath was too much for you. We will always be amazed at your courage, fearlessness and your sense of humour, even unto death (as they say).

We know there were those who loved you quite passionately, and we also know there were those who had reasons not to care for you, but their reasons were not part of your ‘best self’, and I don’t think they have to be mentioned.

I know, I know, this is not the sort of letter you will be interested in; you possibly think me self-indulgent for writing it. But even though you might not be interested in how you are (or aren’t) remembered, it is very important to me because how we talk about you, especially with our grandchildren, will to some extent determine how you journey on with us; whether you remain a participating member of the Mulherin clan or become increasingly an out-of-date photo on our wall. As I have said before, the last thing we want you to become is a rather frightening bloke in sepia on our walls.

On a lighter note, I think you would be pleased to know that the ‘Mulherin-Middle’ is firmly entrenched in the family culture. Did it start as a family tradition on those uni mornings as you strode away from the car to catch a train? Brothers in the car on the way to school, me two toots on the horn and you one prolonged Mulherin-Middle salute held high above your head. Made all of us smile then, every morning, still makes me smile as I write.

And so even if it is just me with the ‘same old, same old’, I will repeat that you still inspire us to try and live our lives well, even if we run at a slightly less relentless pace than you did. And well, let’s be brutally honest, it’s just as well you went full-speed because your days were cruelly cut short. But for the rest of us, well, we seem to be here for the long haul, so we kind of take it a bit easier.

Oh and before I end my rave, I couldn’t possibly forget to say that we do miss your fun dreadfully, however we seem to manage some pretty good attempts at it even without you here.

CSB Ben.

Love Mum