NEW ZEALAND

Hello Mercedes,


My name is Eugene. I am your biological father.

You were never born, and I never held you—but I carry you now, in a way I didn’t understand back then. I don’t know if you knew I existed. I don’t know if you searched for me. But I know this: you were real. You mattered. And you still do.

I was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, and grew up in the Bay Of Plenty. At 22, I worked in a music store by day, DJ’d nightclubs by weekend, and lived like tomorrow didn’t matter.

That’s when I met your mother. She and a friend would stop by the shop most Fridays, flicking through CDs, laughing at our bad jokes, dancing later to the music I spun behind the decks. It was playful, innocent, effortless. The beginning of something I never imagined would lead to you.

In 1995, we were living together when you were conceived. You weren’t planned. We were caught off guard—young, unsure, afraid. The world told us we could “try again later,” that this wasn’t the right time. So we listened to fear instead of love.

By the time we made the decision, you were already into your second trimester. We drove to Auckland, two-and-a-half hours in silence. I sat in the waiting room. They wheeled your mother out after the procedure. She was dazed. I was numb. We drove home without a word, as if silence could erase what we’d done.

But it didn’t. Not then. Not ever.

We believed abortion was the end of a problem.
We learned it was the beginning of a fracture.
It didn’t solve—it split us apart as a couple, and it tore something deep in me I couldn’t name.

A few months later, we ended. And that chapter closed like a door slammed in the dark.

Two decades passed. One day, someone asked:
“Have you ever been involved in an abortion?”
That question unearthed an event I had buried — which eventually led me to the creation of Memories After.

I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.
I’m sorry we thought you were a problem to be fixed, not a person to be cherished.

I know where you are now—your spark never died—it simply changed form. And through my journey, I built "Memories After" for you.

You were a child.
My unborn daughter.

This your place. Your name. Your legacy.
This is where you are remembered.
This is where I stand.

With all my love,
Dad xxx
(aka Eugene Wynyard)