I wish I was just a little bit older when he died. It seems obvious, the later in life it is, the better. Because the older you are, the older he would be and most importantly the longer you would have him around.

This is the obvious reason. No one should be without their dad at the age of 13. It made me older beyond my years and at the same time it turned me into a small child, lost, scared and always on the verge of tears. The contradiction of feeling both made this time in my life, which is already a confusing transition, incredibly hard. But that is the obvious reason. Of course we want it to be as late in life as possible, people lose their parents in their 40s and 50s and it's somewhat expected. But even if it wasn't that late in life, even if it was today, while I am 21, I believe it would have been easier. If he died today, I would have had more support. I have amazing friends back home, but 12 and 13-year-old kids have no idea how to deal with grief, or how to acknowledge it when it happens to someone else. So in most cases they choose to ignore it, for fear of upsetting me. I remember crying in the toilets of my school, not because I missed him, but because I wanted someone to bring him up. I know that if I lost him today those same group of friends would ask and acknowledge and check in more.  My off-day in class wouldn't be seen as crankiness but  as a sign that I wasn't coping with it. In college people are more open, there is a wide discussion on mental health and I could have dealt with it while it happened if it was now. Rather than bottle it up and cry on my own like I did. Colleges provide such open support for grief and mental health struggles. There is a welfare officer, a counselling service, extenuating circumstance options, emailing systems with understanding lecturers who will allow some time off. My tiny 80 pupil secondary school had none of this. Yes, it had kind teachers who knew us all personally but other than the allowance of occasionally skipping your homework many of them had very short memories, it was as if the fact that I came back to school after a week and a half meant that I got over the death of my dad in that same amount of time, which is truly impossible. Doing homework, final exams, choosing college courses and all other areas which require knowledge and intelligence would have been easier if he was still around even five years longer. My dad was an avid and brilliant writer and was fluent in many languages including French.  As someone with a love of journalism, writing and languages I know this journey through education would have been easier if he were around. Every single time I struggled with my French homework or struggled to find the right word in an English essay  I would become extremely upset. If I had my father around for just a few more years I would have gained so much knowledge and would have been better prepared for my Journalism degree. My father was also a ship's captain which a knowledge of all things  nautical. My brother Oisin went on to pursue the same career just two years after dad died. Oisin often says that he wishes dad was around for many reasons, but guidance, information, and assistance in his difficult course are certainly some of those reasons, and his journey through college would have  been a little bit easier. Since my dad died both my brother and I have found significant others who we wish to spend our lives with, if he had have been around just a little bit longer, he would have known them, approved of them, become friends with them and they would understand what type of man he is. I will always feel as though there is part of life that my boyfriend will never know because he didn't meet my dad. It may seem selfish, to wish he was around to make homework easier, to meet our partners, and just for us to be at a time in our lives which would have been a little bit easier. I just can’t help but wish he had been with us a little bit longer – that I hadn’t been so little when I lost him. Megan Roantree