I trawled through the pile of shirts and T-shirts, slightly musty having lain in drawers unused. I picked up the red, long-sleeved shirt, noting that it still had the price tags on. It was a base layer, made for sports. In my Dad’s case I’m sure it was to do the hill walking he had always planned to do. Sadly, I pushed it to one side, thinking I might take it home so I could wear on the fells that I was walking and still had to conquer. I looked at the T-shirt lovingly – a white T-shirt with red Japanese writing on the top right-hand corner. I remembered him in his Seikido uniform going off to do the martial arts he had loved. The one thing he had stuck with devotedly for years, the hobby he had embraced wholeheartedly. He was so thrilled to share this world with his son, to share friends with him, to have a sense of belonging in that masculine world.
I looked over at my brother who was trying on Dad’s tuxedo jacket. The arms were way too long and he held them up and asked comically, “what the hell shape was Dad?” I looked up and laughed heartily. I had never seen him in that tux. He bought it for a cruise he had gone on. It was probably worn once! The tux I remembered so clearly was the one he wore on my wedding day. He had never looked more handsome, the silver hair contrasting so beautifully with the black of the tux. He had also never looked so proud. When everyone else left the house, he said wistfully to me “it seems like just yesterday you were born.” I asked him not to say anymore as I didn’t want to get emotional, cry and spoil my makeup!
The memory washed over me. It had felt like minutes to him between my birth and marriage. Now my life with him seemed to have lasted but a moment as we went through his things and prepared to say goodbye to him. He was a complex man, my Dad. Ours was a relationship that had always caused me turmoil. And now, in facing his death, I had never felt more conflicted.
I think I started out a Daddy’s girl. I remember adoring him. My first fear of death was about him and, when I first realised that people die, I threw myself hysterically at him, wrapping my arms around his legs, saying “I don’t want you to die, Daddy!”
Decades later, now that my fears were a reality, I still didn’t want him to. The day after he died, I woke up and the reality of his passing hit me. As my husband held me in his arms, I sobbed at his loss. The grief was a shock to me; our relationship having been so complicated. I had spent most of my life feeling angry and frustrated at him. I didn’t understand him and I felt like he never understood me. Yet there had been glimpses of him being who I wanted him to be through my life and the memories of those were what made me the saddest now.
The Daddy I adored had a beard! He came to all my parents’ evenings at school and cared about how well I did. If I got a B, he told me it should have been an A. He argued that he was being motivational. I argued that nothing was ever good enough for him.
I used to tug his shoes off and put his slippers on when he came home from work at night. I used to sit on the floor, in the space between his feet which he used to call ‘the nookie.’ I could hear his voice so clearly saying “come and sit in the nookie.” Words I haven’t heard for nearly fifty years. Why were they so clear to me, dragged from those dusty memories in the recesses of my mind?
He was an orthotist. No one really knows what that is and you always have to explain it to people. I spent my childhood surrounded by callipers, leg braces and casts of feet and legs. He was what my mum described as a frustrated doctor. In a different time, he would have gone on to university and become the doctor he wanted to be. Instead, he went from barman to 1st aider to orthotist but the limitations of doing a job which lacked the recognition he so desired frustrated him. He was passionate about his patients and cared deeply about improving life for people who were disadvantaged by their health. Of that I’m still proud.
His professional frustration, coupled with a quick temper and a huge ego, made him difficult to deal with. He would lash out in rage often, for example, on the road, in person, you name it. I lived in fear of his temper, afraid of being on the receiving end. As I grew older, I grew contemptuous of it. It wasn’t how I dealt with things, and I didn’t think it was how he should deal with things either.
He lived a volatile relationship with my mother, one minute passionate, the next angry and hostile. She made excuses for his rages. “It’s just your dad” was a common platitude. It made me so angry. There were times he hurt me terribly only for her to defend his behaviour. That hurt me more.
We emigrated to Canada when I was fifteen. He thought this was his ticket to a better life. He made more money, bought a house bigger than he’d ever dreamed of and embraced the Canadian lifestyle. Well, in theory anyway! Canadians are outdoorsy people who head for the beauty of the mountains and the sea. They hike, ski, sail and fish. My dad was always going to do all those things. He never did. He collected stuff until every room in his house and beyond were overflowing. There were skis for the ski trips that never happened, fishing rods that never went into water, sturdy boots and base layers for the hikes he never took. He stayed within the confines of his small community and only travelled beyond when it was to show off to visiting family members. “Yes, this is a great Canadian lifestyle!” Except that he only lived it for the two weeks every couple of years when he had someone to show off to.
Frustrated with working for an employer, he became self-employed aged forty. He barely worked for the rest of his life, ticking over a tiny business and living off the little wage my mum brought in. His anger and frustration compounded over the years, resulting in long term vices of smoking and alcoholism. Not a man who should have ever drunk alcohol, he would descend into combative or inappropriate behaviour. Mum did her best to keep him away from it but that was never quite successful.
I distanced myself by getting married and starting my own family. He was my adored Daddy on my wedding day when he was so proud to escort his little girl down the aisle. I never saw him as proud as when I told him I was pregnant with his first grandchild. He rushed off to phone his sister. He was so excited! When his first grandson came along, he was equally excited and then ………total disinterest followed by disengagement. I always questioned how he could not have shown interest in his grandchildren, but the trend repeated with his son’s children.
Once he was self-employed, he lived a reclusive life. He dropped out of the martial arts he had loved so much, leaving him doing nothing. Years and years of sleeping in, wasting time on a computer and sitting in front of the TV. I moved away and, at one point, I didn’t see him for almost a decade. It’s a long time in a relatively short life.
I began a new life settling down with someone new. I was virtually estranged from my family on my next wedding day. My lovely husband-to-be talked to my family and told them that I didn’t think they loved me. They were aghast! How could I think that? It’s simple really. People don’t know they’re loved if they’re never shown. On my wedding day my Dad came up to me with tears in his eyes and asked me “how can you think we don’t love you?” I never answered, not wanting to open a wound that could be too deep to ever heal.
We started to visit Canada every couple of years and established a rhythm of contact. Beneath the surface nothing had changed. His world was small. He had four wonderful grandchildren but didn’t seem that didn’t seem to cross his radar. He was now retired but he had worked so little in recent years that I doubt he noticed the transition.
Dad discovered he had a serious health issue and would need major surgery which was very high risk. We went to Canada to surprise him on Father’s Day and to be there as Mum and Dad celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. He made an impassioned speech at the party about how proud he was of all of us. I cried. I had no doubt he was proud, but he lived in this small world where he seldom showed it. During the same trip we shared unprecedented laughter and togetherness. My son, who had seemed so in insignificant in his Grandad’s life, made him laugh until he cried. Thank God we caught the moment on camera, and it is that picture, a frozen precious moment in time, that was on display at my Dad’s funeral.
Among the gifts my Dad gave me in life was a love of music, although he hadn’t listened to any for years toward the end. Our favourite singer was going to be playing in Vancouver in September after Dad and I said our last goodbyes. When we said goodbye, I said to him that if we won the lottery, I would see him in Vancouver at the concert. I never saw him again.
Now here I was sorting through his things in the aftermath of his death, the huge number of possessions was daunting. Every spare cupboard and shelf, the garage and the basement all full of stuff. I looked at the racks of CDs which had been so long unplayed. My Mum said he hadn’t listened to them for years. It made me so sad to recognise reconcile this man with the young man who had taught me to love Barbra Streisand. There were shelves of dusty books, bought and collected for their potential value rather than the magical stories they might have held within. There were books and books about Scotland, his homeland, or the old country as he had called it. To me, he despised and belittled where he had come from. I always suspected he was afraid of the hold it had over him. Someone told me it was all he ever talked about and with such nostalgia and fondness. He would never have let me see that side of him. So complex.
So, the books and CDs were given away, the clothes donated somewhere. This tux would never see another cruise. What would remain would be the memory of the handsome, proud man in another tuxedo on his daughter’s wedding day. I told him then not to carry on saying the things that were making me emotional. I spent the rest of my life wishing he showed me he cared. There was always going to be time to make it right, to fix our relationship. And now that time had gone. I pulled the red top close and vowed to take it up the mountains he had never climbed. With a heavy heart, I took it back home where I grieved for all the things our relationship had never been.
On the one-year anniversary of his death, I took some of his ashes back to the homeland he secretly loved, to a place where he had spent happy times with family back in his own childhood and then in mine. His ashes had been stored in a tiny pot of green glitter so I could safely transport them halfway across the world. On a cold but sunny Scottish day I sprinkled them on the silvery sea where they sparkled in the wintery sunshine. The light in the sky shone in that mystical way that it only does in Scotland. None of the possessions mattered now as his ashes caught in the waves that used to be part of his playground. A full circle. All his anger and pain washed away, while my sadness at a life not fully lived remained.
Nine years later, I wore the red base layer when I climbed my 214th Lakeland fell. My victory in conquering the last of our goals was a testament to a life where I try to live every minute fully. I wish you had, Dad.
Sleep well, Dad. Tempus fugit.
Baggage 