It’s Fathers Day in the UK a week on Sunday.
Another commercial time when my store displays cards and unwanted paraphernalia.
This time we’re just going with cards as the cups and whatnot didn’t go down well last year.
We do tend to overdo things in our house. I usually get a cup (I now have several), a new razor and clothes. Gill says the girls love to shop for me despite the banter that goes on for the rest of the year.
Until last year we’d get my Dad something train-related: a video or a book of vintage engines. He worked on a station in Oz for a year or so before he took over a Salvation Army Corps.
This year I’ll get him some fresh flowers for his rose tree. He never liked them and he wasn’t one for maudlin grave visits so I know he would admonish me for “wasting” time and good money on him. It’s more for me, I think.
We aimed to go and visit last week but a talkative shopkeeper slowed us down and we missed it. It actually saddened me as we headed home and I realised then that I’m still mourning him.
Effectively losing him as a Father in 1973 after a car crash severely disabled him has always made our relationship difficult. I know it has affected my character and the way I relate to authority figures.
I don’t think we ever properly mourned this loss and his passing in November has allowed a release for the family.
There has been a resentment from all of us that the father figure other kids have was missing. Constantly explaining to other kids when they talked what their Dads did was hard. You’re heart would sink a little as you would reply ” He’s disabled. He was in a car accident.” knowing the awkward silence would follow as they wouldn’t know what to say.
He learned to walk and talk again and he overcame the alternating seizures and zombie-state as Mum helped control his badly prescribed drug regime.
His temper and overall mindset wasn’t good. He preyed on my younger brother often turning him into a tearful mess, picking on his every move as he ate his tea. Even now Mum feels guilt for actually feeling a little happiness from this release.
She has her ups and downs. She misses the work of looking after my Dad and is struggling to fill the empty hours.
Being a Dad is part learned and part made up as you go along. His Father died when he was a boy so, like me, he did the best with what little he could remember and what he worked out along the way.
I would credit him with doing what he could in my first ten years, bearing in mind he was working all hours and dealing with a wilful young wife and a resident and very dominant mother. (this would make a good novel)
There’s the same gap between me and him as there is between me and my older daughters so it’s we probably would have related to our kids in similar ways. It is odd how life repeats itself.
People often write about the contribution their parents made to their lives, be it positive or negative. I often feel quite neutral about his input. He was the softer parent when I was a child with discipline being left to Mum. Then he was gone to be replaced by an invalid who needed our care.
But now he’s gone and we I have to find a way to move on. You can’t spend your life mourning what wasn’t. I should be spending it celebrating what is what will be.
