Michelle Ryan

So in

order like if we had an estranged relationship and we didn't talk to her for days or whatever and that was our normal you'd say all right well yeah but the fact that we talk first thing in the morning then there could be 20 phone calls throughout the day and then there'd be messages in between hand and then he'd ring me on the way home from work shelly are you around town today i am daddy yeah why what's up i should give a shout out there i'll put on the kettle

And that was the normal routine.

So to go from that into not being able to make contact with them on the 3rd of June.

And as I said, we had kids, they were saying, oh, where's Grandad Bob?

Because obviously they would have been used to coming to Grandad Bob as well.

We had like it was very light ground on what we were walking on and we had to be so, so careful because we couldn't in a sense, even though we knew it, but we couldn't turn around and say, tell the kids that Grandad Bob has gone to Holy God's house because number one, we had no body.

All we had was our feelings and our feelings definitely were not strong enough to sit down a child and say, well, look, it's our feeling that Grandad Bob has gone to heaven.

We couldn't do that.

So we had 22 months of saying this to children that, you know, he could be on a holiday or, you know, don't worry about it, you know.

And like we couldn't use the words, it's going to be fine.

But they were still asking questions as to where has Grandad Bob gone?

But not only his absence, I mean, to go from 20 phone calls a day and all of those text messages to nothing, it must have just left this huge absence in your life.

Oh, it did.

You know, it's a part of me that will

there's a part of me that'll be dark forever.

You know, there'll never any, no matter where I stand in my own lifetime now, that will never feel full again.

um like there's no matter what like I still go to the phone this day and want to pick up the phone and to ring him or we could be saying something I say I have to ring daddy over this like it's just it's the slip of the mind and like it's like I know he's gone you know like it's I'm not carrying on like a mad woman like when I say that I still want to ring him but it's the slip of the mind um I think it's because I'm

I do.

I miss I so miss the contact with him.