The final hour was approaching. Death was his fate. Such were the horrors of his crimes that he knew that he deserved absolutely no mercy or leniency. In fact he had instructed his lawyers to stop the appeals procedures. Indeed he was guilty, and images of the dead, those he had murdered, filled his head. He was ready to pay the price. Hideous and an abomination to the world, hell awaited him. Even now in the darkest recesses of his mind he felt the fires of hell already lapping at his feet.

He prayed desperately that there would no heaven nor hell and that physical death was the end. He laughed inwardly as the bitter irony of his prayer resonated within him.

A knock at the door. It lifted his mind back into the present. So polite, he thought, as a prison guard entered.

'I have brought you the pen and paper you requested,' the guard said as he passed a notepad and pen to him, after removing the cap first. 'Don't do anything stupid. I have been instructed to stay in here with you. If the pen moves more than a few centimetres from the paper I have been instructed to take it off you and that'll be the end of that. Do you understand?'

'Yes,' he said meekly as he took the pen and notepad. He had no intention of doing himself in or worse. He was ready to take responsibility for his crimes and he mused for just a few seconds on the fact that the closer death gets, and the more inevitable it becomes, the more an individual is likely to cling to what little life he has.

He looked at the paper for the fewest of seconds before starting to write. He already knew what he wanted to say, it was his final statement, a testament for the world that would be gone forever in just a few short hours.

Dear Mum

I write to you with bitterness in my heart. I am guilty of all of those terrible things that they say I did and probably worse. I am ready to face my end, but before then I need to tell you something.

You loved me, you always did, but I am not the only one guilty here.

When I was little and bumped my knees or scraped my elbows you were always there to pick me up. You held me, cuddled and kissed me and soothed the pain away. You picked me up when I cried and bathed me, oh so gently and your loving embrace was never far away.

I loved you and I love you.

But mum, where were you when I stole that boy's bike when I was just eight years old? Even when the police came round you just held me and told me everything would be ok. Where were you when I smashed the window in my classroom because I got angry with the teacher? Again you just smothered me with your love and told me everything would be ok. What did you do when I was 13 and I stayed out all night and came home drunk the next morning? You cuddled me and told me that you loved me and sent me to bed because I was tired. What about when you first found out that I was smoking weed? You laughed it off as a phase - just something teenagers do. 

Mum, your overbearing love, left me trapped in a spider's web and now entangled in that web I had no way out and the more I struggled and fought the more desperate I became. Even when I moved on to crack, I wasn't able to hide it for long. You'll come out right in the end you said in that infuriatingly gentle voice of yours. You were out of touch and I felt abandoned.

You were always there, but never there at the same time.

I stole from you, I sold your electricals right under your nose and you just mutely replaced them and I realised I couldn't steal from you any more. So I took to stealing outside. What is a mugging and few dollars? Why did they sometimes resist and I have to beat them. I am sure you remember the two years I spent in prison after I beat that woman up? What did you do when I came out? Welcomed me back with open arms with no changes.

Old friends, old habits and my demon was reborn, but thirsty with anger. With a record I had no chance of getting a job or straightening myself out and all you did was let me doss at your house. You no longer even commented when you knew full well that I was shooting myself up with crack again. I was in debt and the dealers were coming after me.

What choice did I have?

And so then on that dreadful night, desperate and frightened, I took a knife from your kitchen and broke into the house. I really thought it was empty and that nobody was at home, but then they disturbed me. I panicked and killed him first. She didn't offer much of a threat and as they say in for a penny in for a pound...

Yes Mum, I am guilty, I am not long for this world, and so it should be. I feel sorrow for those who I hurt, and that those children and grandchildren who lost their parents / grandparents. But but mum now, finally in my last hours, you will hear me. It is my last gift to you. What I needed was a firm hand, direction and purpose. I did not need somebody to bail me out every time I slipped. I needed to be taught responsibility and to be responsible for my actions.

It is only now in these final hours that I truly understand this. I should have learnt this 20 years ago, probably starting when I stole that bike, or maybe even sooner. 

Your love suffocated me and now we can see the endgame play out. In just a few short hours you will be crying over the shell of my being. My body, cold and in repose. 

Where is your comfort then? How can you cuddle me and tell me everything will be alright?

I will be dead and a part of you will die with me. That will be the end, there will be no more tomorrows.

Your love was not enough I needed more and as fate awaits me, I need you to finally understand.

Mum I failed you, but you failed me just as much.

I do hope that somehow you will find solace in your dreams and especially those of me as a young innocent before everything changed. I still remember the softness of your hands and the comfort of your embrace and if I were to have one last request it would be just for you to hold me one last time and for you to tell me everything would be ok, just like you used to.

But it is too late for that.

I want to thank you for the life I've had, but the bitterness in my heart just won't let me.

I love you mum and I always will. 

Your forever loving son

xxx 

This article is loosely based on something I read on Quora several months ago and it may or may not be based on truth. Whatever the facts, the point is valid, children need guidance as much as they need love and if we don't do both then we fail our children. The consequences may not be as dramatic as outlined above, but all to often it is the parents who fail their children. 

I have recently read that for the first seven years of a boy's life they are very much their mum's and the relationship is internal facing, and then for the next seven years the centre becomes dad (if present) as the boy starts to see the world and his view moves to an external perspective and by the time he is fourteen friends take over as the major influence in the boy's life. We as parents have fourteen years to get those foundations in place and to help our sons make the right kind of friends (based on Raising Boys - Steven Biddulph).

Having boys at home ,I have never really focused on how this applies / doesn't apply to girls.

As always stay safe and well my friends