I Loved From The Day He Died: My Father, Forgiveness and a Final Pilgrimage by Michael Harding

To mark his 70th birthday Michael Harding travelled to Spain and walked the Camino de Santiago.

Yet, as he set off on his pilgrimage, he found he wasn’t alone. Accompanying him on his 126-kilometre walk in the heat of the Spanish sun was the ghost of his long-dead father, a distant and aloof figure whom he lost when he was only twenty-two years old. Here, with searing honesty and beautifully wrought prose, Harding examines how this man, who had diedalmost half a century ago, could have had such a profound effect on the writer’s life.

From the Ireland of his youth, to the time of his father’s death, and to the holy wells and pubs he frequented in search of a connection with a man he never really knew, I Loved Him From The Day He Died is a heartfelt examination of love, forgiveness and letting go – told with simple vulnerability and profound insight.