by Nia Wyn
These were my private thoughts and feelings then, but flicking through these pages once again, it seems as if I still remember every single one of them. From the summer he was born to the summer he turned seven, and I’d no longer feel the need to hide them.
When I hold this book, I remember the winter I typed these diary entries onto paper and gave them to my mum and sister in the hope that it might comfort them. We went to New York City that winter, Mum and Carol and me, and sipped cocktails in Times Square, and the world looked like it does in movies, sitting there. “If only life were really like the movies, or as they tell it in those fairy tales,” Mum turned and said to me, “these papers would become a book one day that would be read by people globally.”
I remember the following spring, when I look at this book. When I’d typed up this story into a manuscript and stood at the local post-box, dithering. I feared it was too private and too personal. But it finally got posted—to a small Welsh publisher called Seren (which means “star” in English)—and walking home that day in May, it felt as if I’d sent my heart away.
When this book was published, we hid under the duvet, Joeski and I, unsure about it altogether. I worried that we might be pitied. But, one week later, when we went out and saw our blue skies sprawled across the bookshelves of our city, it seemed as if we’d joined a whole new world.
I’ve come to realize today how much this journey’s meant to Joe and me, and how many thoughts we’d never have imagined once upon a time, that can now be brought to mind.
When I hold this book, I think of the letters that have come. Day after day, one by one. I think of a mother in London who has a child, she says, like Joe, and I think of the couple who lost their daughter at the age of twenty-one, and feel this memoir also speaks for them.
I think of the football supporter who “never” reads books, but pulled over his car when he heard this on the radio, because he couldn’t drive for sobbing. I think about the deacon who says he’s used it for a sermon, and the friend who tells me it’s inspired a song. There have been so many letters, and all of them to me are precious.
One day last term when Joeski went to school, the teachers had filled the corridor with the newspaper reviews of this book, and he couldn’t move for people celebrating him. And the day he joined in his school’s talent competition, the children waved their arms and cheered him on, even when they couldn’t understand the song.
Holding this book today, I consider the way it’s traveled from that little post-box—all the way around the world and back—my heart intact. From the UK to Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and America, and I’m amazed by that and want to thank you. It’s been such a privilege to share it with you.
And, if I think back these days to New York City and my mum, it
tells me this, this little book, when I’m reflecting on those words
again. That real life does work out sometimes the way they say it
does in fairy tales,
just like they tell it in the movies,
and that miracles still happen.
About the Author
Originally from North Wales, Nia Wyn has worked as a journalist in Wales and London. She now lives in Cardiff with her nine-year-old son, Joe, where she is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.
