Meghan Markle is in a bit of a bind. She’s been relentlessly flogging her Netflix Christmas special in which she talks about the importance of family at Christmas. She waxes lyrical about how magical it all is for the kids and how determined she is to make it special for Archie and Lilibet with handmade crackers and personalised advent calendars. She rambles on endlessly about warmth and love and friendship and family.

And while we’re all watching this fantastical nonsense her estranged father, Thomas Markle, is desperately ill in a hospital in the Philippines where there’s a real danger he might die. So, will his long-lost daughter practise what she preaches about family and love and compassion and fly to his side? So far that hasn’t happened. And it's not likely to because she hasn’t seen her ailing dad for seven years during which time he’s had two heart attacks and a stroke.

Back then, he made a mistake by foolishly posing for paparazzi pics showing him preparing for the wedding. He’d wanted to improve his public image after unflattering shots had been published of him and which he thought would embarrass Meghan, so he posed up being measured for a new suit.

Hardly the crime of the century and not one that should have seen him disowned by his daughter and her Prince. Could Harry and Meghan not have shown understanding – not anger – at what he’d been trying to do? But what Thomas did was the excuse Meghan needed to cut him out of her life completely – like she had the rest of her family. Let’s face it the ailing, overweight, skint Thomas was not someone she wanted to take into her new royal life despite the fact he had been a brilliant dad and paid for her private education.

And it’s a bit rich for Meghan to get upset at what she saw as an unforgivable breach of family loyalty when she and Harry have done way worse to our Royal Family.

Thomas’ latest health blow couldn’t have come at a worse time for Meghan because she needs her warm and cosy Christmas special to work as this second series of With Love Meghan didn’t even make Netflix’s Top Ten shows. And if she doesn’t go and see her dad and he dies, it will make everything she’s ever said about love and family look like a big fat lie.

All families have fall outs, some more serious than others. But what Thomas Markle did was daft rather than evil and he’s paid a heavy price for it. Should he really be punished until his dying breath? He’s already been denied the joy of ever knowing his grandchildren. So does Meghan’s anger, her vindictiveness, really extend to denying him what might be a final goodbye? How can she continue to make a career based on love and compassion when she hasn’t shown a jot of either to her poor dad?

But more important than her career – Meghan will come to learn that people who refuse to let go of anger, of grudges, who cut family out of their lives, who are unable to show forgiveness, or understanding will, in the end, pay a bigger price than the person they’re trying to punish. Because that sort of vengefulness eats away at the soul. It damages hearts and minds and poisons how you treat everyone around you.

Meghan just needs to pray that her own children never do to her what she has done to her father. It’ll break her heart – just like she’s broken his!