Fathers Day

I do like to read people’s messages about fathers day, mothers day and birthday and in memoriam pieces too.

I am always touched by those messages of love and even more so by messages of love and loss.  They are personal, poignant and when people decide to share them with us, I love it.

Now me, I don’t do anniversary remembrances.  And that’s just me.

My dad died on 28^th February 2011, my mum died in 1999 (no idea of the date October, was it?).

I was, for most of my life, much closer to my mum, both physically and spiritually (not in the religious sense), but as the years went by my dad and I found each other in so far that two disparate folk could ever be.

My mum died suddenly; my dad’s death dragged out over two months, half the world away.  I can’t even remember the year in which my stepfather died, nor any of my grandparents.  Is it because I don’t care?  Of course not.

I cried once when my mother died and that was when I rang her brother to tell him the news.  Oddly, he didn’t seem at all bothered and after a subsequent awkward exchange of letters (ask your parents, kids) I concluded he didn’t seem bothered because he wasn’t.

I arranged the cremation, chose the music and moved on, occasionally cheered by the memories, occasionally dispirited by what I perceived was a lack of fulfillment in her life.  But maybe that was my perception of what her life could and should have been.  She never actually told me she wasn’t fulfilled. 

And I moved on.

Of course I think about her from time to time and remember the love and sacrifices she made but I never felt melancholy or felt the need to make visits to the crematorium. What would flowers achieve?

I have no religious superstitions so maybe that was it.  I never believed she would survive her own death and that we would somehow meet again so I must have decided, sub-consciously, to not waste time hoping for it.

I honestly don’t think about her on mother’s day any more than I think of her on any other day of the year. But I don’t begrudge for one moment those who do.

My dad is a different story.

For years, we were not that close – hardly surprising, you might think, given that he lived in Canada – but in latter times we grew much closer.

In 2004 I attended his 75^th birthday and five years later his 80^th. 

So the last time I saw him was in 2009.  As I arrived at Ottawa airport to fly home, I never dreamed for one moment it would be the last time I would see him.

Two years later and I was flying across the pond to attend and speak at the celebration of his life (he didn’t do funerals, least of all his own).

Do I miss him?  Very much, of course I do.

Do I wish he was still with us?   More than anything.

So should I be having sentimental thoughts and shedding tears of what was and what could have been?

I cried all the way to Canada, off and on, following his death.  I reasoned that this was because I had not prepared my mind for all the steps that I would be taking.  I was a blubbering mess in departures, an angst-ridden wreck.

Perhaps the devout gain comfort from their faith and they believe they will meet the dead and when they too are dead?  Good luck to them, I suppose, but the comfort doesn’t make it true.

Sometimes I walk through the beautiful churchyard near our house – it leads to the railway station – and I see people tending the graves of loved ones and laying flowers.

It’s rather sweet and, I guess, fulfills a need.  A need to connect, a need to hang on to someone who has died, perhaps?  I’m not going to knock it.

So it’s fathers day today, the day when shops make a fortune from people buying things to express their love for their dads, just like Christmas really.

The less cynical might say it’s a day to celebrate dad, dead or alive.

I’ll be in the less cynical camp for once.