We'll (not) meet again

As a non-religious person, I am aware of the near certainty that I will never again meet those who have died.

And I have no need to persuade myself that there may, after all, be some form of celestial dictator, a supernatural creator, who has designed things to ensure that we all meet again in the kingdom (and being religious it would have to be a kingdom and not a queendom) of Heaven.

That’s a bit of a shame really because I would like to have another chance to thank my mother for bringing me up single-handed.

I'd also seek out my father to learn a bit more about him.

With my father living in Canada for much of my life, our contact was mainly by airmail letter.  For years, we did not have a telephone in the house and those pale blue fold over envelopes represented our only meaningful contact.

I knew my mother well enough.

She was a simple woman, not a stupid person I hasten to add, who had few interests beyond going to work, bringing me up and then going to bed.

When she found re-marriage, she became a hermit, rarely leaving the new marital home but for a time she was happy.  She died in 1999 after an horrendous later life of illness and pain, all caused, incidentally, by cigarette smoking.

I was obviously greatly saddened when she died but there was little I didn’t know about her.  There were no secrets, nothing hidden in the closet.

With one parent remaining (I also had a stepfather who lived his final miserable years in a care home, his life gradually taken away by the ravages of Parkinsons) I now know I should have taken more of an interest in my father.

Anthony Johansen’s was a long life well lived.

When he died, I had made my peace with him.

Not that there was any rancour or bitterness – certainly not from him: he was always blissfully, frustratingly consistent! – but I knew him far better in his twilight years.

Prior to 2004 (about which more in a moment), he visited England to see his family and we were part of that visit and that family.

I loved him being there but in so many ways I didn’t really understand our relationship.

I had missed the son and dad life, although I did not realise until much later in life, thanks in large part to my mother, I didn’t miss it at the time.

When he re-appeared from time to time, I knew who he was and yet I didn’t. 

He was my father but to me that was only a name.

In 2004, I made my second ever visit to Canada, my first was in 1975.  It was for his 75^th birthday party.

By now, he had met the true love of his life, Joy Phillips.  He never told me this – it wasn’t the sort of thing he would tell me – but I just knew from a very early stage.

I still felt a long distance visitor but I now felt more like a son because he introduced me to people as such.

Five years later and I was back in Canada for his 80^th birthday, a truly wonderful time in my life. 

As ever, we quarrelled and disagreed about things but I now knew for sure that the bond was as close as it would ever get.  For his 80^th birthday I took him to see John Fogerty in concert.

I left Canada much happier with our relationship.  There would be other times we would spend together.  Maybe I would see him for his 85^th?

In late 2010 he fell ill and on 28 February 2011 he left us for good.

Days later, I made my fourth visit to Canada but this time in the worst of all circumstances.

It passed in a blur.

Tears here, there and everywhere before and on the flight.

My brothers Noel and Vaughan and I spoke at a celebration of our father’s life and before I knew it, normality was resumed.

It’s the what might have been that I can’t quite come to terms with.

It’s patently absurd to think that, in the very unlikely event I end up in Heaven (in the even more unlikely event that it exists at all!) that I’d find anyone I knew anyway.  And how old would they be anyway?  The age they died?

I knew my father quite well when he died but I didn’t know him well enough.

I’ll never know him any better than I do now and that’s the worst bit.