I suppose to start with, you need to know why I am who I am today. Much research has been done on GID and there are many theories as to why it is caused. I believe in one theory, because I am a living example of it; my life has gone pretty much as it says, here is what happened so many years ago, and that caused these events in my life.

Its December 2000, me, my Mum, my Dad and my brother are in Ireland; we are visiting my Dads mother and his other immediate family and staying with them for Christmas. My Dad was a carpenter and took jobs whenever he could. He had taken one a month or two before, fixing someone’s roof; I believe it was replacing one of the wooden struts in the roof; he and a college were doing their thing, and were carrying the new beam into place. Apparently my Dad hit his head on one of the inner beams, and they probably had a good joke about it.

It must be about a week before Christmas, my Mum and Brother are out getting Christmas shopping; my dad has taken me into a local pub to watch Ireland play a football game. –Do you know how sometimes a memory can be so great or so terrible that it engraves itself into your mind, it roots itself so deep that you could never get rid of it? This is one of those memories- My Dad is sitting on a stool, with his pint of Guinness, I am sitting next to him with a fruit shoot (I was only four at the time). Ireland must have scored because everyone is cheering. Suddenly my Dad falls backwards off his stool, people shout “Whey!” but when they see he has stopped moving, they get worried. This memory is so deeply engraved in me; I could tell you the colour of the wood of the counter or of the walls (woody red and lime green if you were wondering). I'm just sitting there. Not moving. Just staring. Not knowing what has happened.

I don’t remember much after that, but the next thing I can remember it is the 24th, Christmas Eve. I'm standing next to my Dad, lying in a bed in hospital, eyes closed and not moving but conscious. He can hear what we’re saying though, Mum, my brother and me. This is another memory that I can remember because it is part of what made me. It is important to me. I’m standing next to my Dad’s head, crying. Just crying. Crying because my dad was dying and there is not one thing I can do about it. It was a Brain haemorrhage, the doctors tell my Mum. If they had caught it earlier they could have fixed it. He could have lived. One small knock to his head and he is dying. They laughed about it then but neither knew of the consequences later on; consequences for both of us.

He dies later tonight. On the 24th of December, Christmas Eve, Year 2000, my Father dies.