It’s Father’s Day here in the UK, and I’ve spent most of the day with my Dad.
Father’s Day is always a difficult time of year for The Other Half and I. His Dad died when he was younger, and the Grandfather that pretty much brought me up, died just as I hit early teens. Although I’ve still got my Dad, I still feel that on Father’s day, there is someone missing. And so, each year, I make an extra card anyway, to say thank you for being a Dad when my own Dad couldn’t.
My Dad worked alot when my sister and I were growing up. Not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t really have a choice. We needed the money. Don’t get me wrong, we never struggled, and my sister and I were pretty spoilt to be honest. We always had nice things – nice house, nice cars, nice clothes.. But nice things cost money, and someone has to go out and earn that money. So, my mother worked part time, and my Dad worked as much as he could – taking any overtime that was offered.
We did see him, usually just on odd weekends, or the odd evening during the week – but he was either working, or sleeping most of the time. He worked hard, and he loved his job. I begrudged him spending time away from our family – missing Christmas dinner to go to work, missing birthday parties and school plays. But as I’ve got older, I’ve come to understood that in his own strange way, my Dad was showing us how much he loved us, by working so hard to provide for us. He’s never been one for showing his emotions, and maybe he felt that buying us things would make us feel loved.
And I did feel loved. But I missed my Dad. When he was home, he played with us and had fun, leaving my Mum to do all the actual parenting. When my Mum was at work, my sister and I went to my Mother’s parents. I quickly established my Granddad as my favourite person in the whole wide world. He was old, with wiry eyebrows and grey, thinning hair. He was wise, funny, and an avid church-goer. And to me, he was perfect. He let me climb his apple trees and eat the apples while I sat up in the branches. I was allowed to take off my pretty dresses in exchange for dungarees, and go rolling down hills with him, getting covered in grass stains (which my Mother would later scold him for). He took me to business meetings, where I learnt (from a very young age) that people only expected little girls to speak when they were spoken to, but that Granddad didn’t care when I spoke – as long as I had something I thought was important to say. Best of all, he let me sit on his shoulders so I could pick conkers out of the trees in the park. We would poke holes through them and tie shoelaces through the centres. Once I had been taught how to play conkers properly, there was no stopping me, and no boy in my entire school ever beat me at that game.
He died two days before my thirteenth birthday. His third heart attack was too much for him to beat, and my Grandma found him laying in the hall when she got up to get a glass of water. I heard my Mother leave the house just after midnight, and the next morning when I asked my Dad where she was – he answered, “She’s just gone to see Grandma”. And I knew then. Granddad had always had a bad heart – he wasn’t allowed to eat fried foods, he had a strict exercise regime – and he did stick to it.. Most of the time. He snuck a bacon butty every friday morning on his way to work, and on a Saturday afternoon he would take me to buy a milkshake while he drank coffee with full fat milk in it. It was hardly a crime, and I admired him for breaking the rules every now and again. I knew that he had died before anyone had told me. I can’t explain how, or why, but I knew.
I didn’t cry when my Dad’s Mother broke the news to my sister and I. Infact, I didn’t cry until I was tucked safely in bed on the night of my thirteenth birthday. I rubbed the tiny head of the solid wood Buddha that Granddad had wrapped up for my birthday. I wasn’t wishing for luck – like you’re supposed to when you rub a Buddha’s head, I was wishing for someone to bring my Granddad back.
There was no one to take me to church in the days between my Granddad’s death and the day of his funeral, and I didn’t want to go alone. I had said my prayers every night, and asked God to reconsider his decision, to at least let me say goodbye first. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral – I was “too young”, members of our family said. I pleaded with my Mum, and she said she agreed – I was too young, and no good would come of it. We were sent to a neighbours for the day, where I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out until my Dad came back for me.
No one came back. At least, not until after the funeral. I looked at my parents and my Grandma, all dressed in black, with puffy red eyes. I remember being stunned at how beautiful my Grandma was, even when she’d been crying – and I wondered how she would carry on living without the love of her life. She asked if I would like to go to church with her in the morning, and I told her no. When she asked why, I remember clear as day, shouting out that I would not say prayers to a God who would let a man like that die in pain. My Grandma slapped my face, and left the room. She apologised later, but I knew deep down that I deserved that slap – and that she and I would remember those words, and that slap, for the rest of our lives.
When my parents finally allowed me to visit Granddad’s grave, I felt so terrified I thought I might be sick. His gravestone, along with his name and his years of birth and death, described him as, “A loving Husband, Brother, Father and Grandfather.” I felt tears burning my cheeks and I reminded my Mum that we had never called him Grandfather, as it made him feel old. The flowers on his grave were all wrong – red roses, instead of yellow (his favourite), lillies instead of carnations.. Even at just thirteen, I knew that although his remains were underneath that stone – it would mean as little to him as it did to me. I only visited the grave when it was expected of me, and I said my own goodbyes in private, underneath his apple trees where I believed he would hear me the clearest. I haven’t been back for years. There is no reason to, in my eyes. There is no body under the stone anymore, there are no words I want to read, no flowers I want to rearrange. Maybe it’s more that, it’s too hard to visit a place that doesn’t suit him – that he doesn’t belong in. Some sombre graveyard, with few flowers and no trees.. So I don’t visit. Instead, on his birthday, at Christmas, Father’s Day and the wedding anniversary of him and my Grandma – I buy a yellow rose, and keep it until it’s petals are crisp. This year, I planted a Christmas rose, tulips, forgetmenots and snowdrops in my garden. And each time they bloom, I will remember that the lifetime and memories of a person can not be held in a grave or a headstone – it can only be held in the hearts of the people who loved them dearly.
I saw more of my Dad after my Granddad died. We never spoke about it, but I was, and am, sure that he knew I needed someone to ride my bike with, someone to take me fishing and show me how to repot plants. Unfortunately, just as my Dad made time to spend with me, I discovered boys, drinking and black hair dye. Admittedly, I did go off the rails a little. But I had stopped caring – if there was no God, then who exactly was going to punish me? I spent most of my teenage years blocking out any memories that hurt too much to remember. I either misbehaved, or I didn’t behave at all – I sat in my room and did nothing productive. No one knew what to say to me, and while even at that age – I knew I was just going through typical teenage times, I felt as though I would feel lonely for the rest of my life.
I spend more time now with my Dad than I ever have done. Because I not only recognise why he worked to hard and so late, but I remember that had he not done, I would have missed out on the precious years I spent growing up with a man who taught me more about myself than I realised. My Dad is a wonderful man, and a wonderful father. But although I would never admit it, Father’s Day brings back too many happy and painful memories of a man who was perhaps more of a Dad to me, growing up, than my own Dad was for one reason or another.
The poem below, by an unknown author, my Granddad helped me to write in a Father’s Day card for my Dad when I was six years old. I made a card for my Dad this year, with this poem inside. Not one to show his emotions, my Dad laughed and said thank you, but his eyes told me that he remembered, and I hoped he understood. No one can replace my Granddad, but no one can replace my Dad either. I had an idol growing up – someone I aspired, and still aspire, to be like. Growing older with my Dad has taught me many things, but most importantly it’s taught me that not everyone shows love in the same way. I’m proud of my Daddy, of the ways he has changed his outlook over the years and come to realise that money is worthless compared to time. My Dad and I both missed out on each others company when I was growing up, but he gave me a blessing in giving me that time with my Granddad. And now, I spend more time with my Dad than I ever have done – because I know how precious that time may come to be. I still have a tiny wooden Buddha and a yellow rose on my bedside table tonight, but I have a Dad to remind me how important it is to live for tomorrow, not for yesterday.
Happy Father’s Day, to both my Dads’. Thank you for the time we had, and have, together. You have taught me how to be who I am today, and I can only hope that I will continue to grow without losing the pieces of you that are in me.
