Father's Day

Dear Dad

The last time R and I saw you was on this day, Father’s Day, last year. You hadn’t wanted us to come: Covid fears and restrictions notched up the reluctance you were already feeling when it came to visits. How much is missed that we catch with the illuminating beam of hindsight? Now that I look back, you had been withdrawing for years - almost imperceptibly at first: a touch more weariness; a softening of your voice; a little less patience, then an unsettling abundance of it.

I hadn’t missed everything though. Just two weeks previously I had emailed a friend, who had lost her own father a few years ago after a period of similar withdrawal. “I think my dad’s dying”, I wrote, though I couldn’t articulate precisely why.

Against your wishes, we visited. We sat in the sunny garden (no hugs, of course, with Covid in full throttle) and you seemed … if not well, at least not too bad. Maybe I was wrong? I hoped, as the four of us enjoyed a cuppa, chatting and laughing. Just the four of us again. How long had it been since just the four of us had sat down together? You listened to the songs my older two had recorded with their dad, as attentive as always, declaring them both “superb”. I glowed with pride, as I knew you meant it. Your absolute honesty - whether brutal, life-affirming or anywhere in between - was something on which I could always rely. We took a few giddy, socially distanced selfies (“Don’t post that - it looks as if I’m on the toilet!”, you snorted) and went home. Mum said how much good it had done you; how happy you were that we’d come after all.

I had thought I was fairly well prepared. Maybe it was the reassurance of that visit, or perhaps actually it is something for which you cannot prepare, but I never imagined emitting the scream that awoke my eight-year-old when R rang that morning 11 days later; never envisaged the almost biblical wailing and nonsensical ranting my poor brother had to endure down the phone. Assimilating the single fact that you were gone was all my brain could deal with in those first moments. Other essentials would return in minutes, hours, days.

And so, to business. “Dad wanted to be a tree”, was the faintly absurd first thing I said after I'd hugged Mum and R (Covid restrictions were cast aside without a thought) and found my voice. It seemed very important to make this clear early on. Remember when you said you wanted to be left to decompose in the park and become topsoil; that that would be most beneficial for the environment? Never cracked a smile. Deadpan. I mooted the tree alternative, which involved ashes being planted with a sapling in specially prepared soil, at which point you did smile, saying, “Excellent. I’ll leave that to you to sort, then, when the time comes.”

“It will have to be a humanist service, won’t it?”, said Mum, the devout Christian. (There’s love on the soulmate level, right there.) I was glad she’d raised it first; had been steeling myself.

I know you would have approved of your send off: the colourful attire, the choice of poems (both written by Mum), the music, the eulogy and the people there - just twenty of us, but all Ever So Important, of course. The social gathering following your humanist funeral took place in the church hall and sun-drenched vicarage garden, and it still makes me smile that, somehow, 10 per cent of your mourners managed to be vicars.

Beyond the send off, then. A friend once told me that she continued to get to know her dad after he had died, and I understand this now. In the days and weeks following your passing you would appear to me as an almost physical presence, and I felt what I know you would have been feeling, had you been here - or even what you would have wanted me to do. “Buy the £10 flowers for your mum, not those £5 ones”, you once piped up in Tesco, from whatever part of my mind you reside in, making me jump. Like you, I am not religious, nor would I describe myself as spiritual. You had little patience with abstract concepts such as ‘spiritual growth’. “I have tried my best”, you sighed, “but I have never been able to define exactly what a spirit is, let alone work out how to make it bigger”.

Our relationship is still there nonetheless, and still developing as my subconscious and I continue the work we hadn’t completed while you were alive. Ours wasn't the easiest relationship: we clashed, I sometimes felt intimidated by you and you often felt I didn’t like you much. I thought you didn’t understand me, but now see that you understood me only too well. These days revelations continue to come, which I wish I could share with you. I know rage as you did, but we never talked about a sense of not fulfilling our potential, which was something else we shared. I used to feel frustration that you refused the heart operation you needed, but now I see your courage and stoicism; the endurance of much pain and limitation in order to live, and die, on your own terms.

I wish you had stayed longer, though. There’s so much I would share with you. I would tell you how T is now developing the love of classical music that you instilled in me - as well as an appreciation of Kate Bush. Remember when he used to sing Wuthering Heights as a five-year-old? “Early Kate Bush videos are not something that any young boy (or old man) should be exposed to”, was your grandfatherly advice. F achieved stunning A-level results and went to university. She has taught herself the guitar and has your picking style. She also has the same faraway look in her eyes when she plays. I find it immensely comforting. N has inherited your artistic flair. I think she may turn out to be pretty good. Mum is growing closer to her grandchildren every day. We are doing our best to look after her, though I know it's not enough. I want to tell you all of this.

You weren’t a fan of Father’s Day. “It’s not a real thing”, you objected. “Mothering Sunday is the occasion; Father’s Day is just a bolt-on.” Maybe this is why, this year, the sight of all the cards in the shops rankles. I want to rip them up. I always struggled to find the right one. Cheesy was no good, boating/beer mugs/cars/trains - none of that either. Always managed to come up trumps in the end, though. Sometimes you have to search a little harder before you spot that hidden gem.

With love,

Lizzy xx