I was casting about trying to find something, anything to write about today (not having yet put together my little ‘bag of ideas’ - but I will…) and was finding it quite difficult. I thought I could write something about the Italian lesson I just had, or perhaps my trip to the gym (yay! I went!) or something about Mondays in general, or even the ballet class I take on Monday evenings, but nothing was really ‘working’ for me.
Again, I thought about a ‘vignette’ but I wasn’t sure whether I had the time to dedicate to something that could end up ‘growing’, as these things so often do. In the midst of all this, a reminder from my calendar popped up informing me, as it does annually, that this was the date on which my father died some 12 years ago (math was never my forte and I just had to ‘finger count’ to arrive at the correct number of years - this is a salient and slightly ironic bit of information).
It’s hard to believe that amount of time has passed - I suppose that’s a sign of age - a blink of an eye and what happened yesterday turns into what happened 12 years ago.
My father and I were not close; the last time I saw him was at my nephew’s wedding in 1990, I believe - he came out to Massachusetts with 2 of my brothers and we managed to get along - well enough for the duration of the wedding. The last time I’d seen him before that had been in about 1980 or 81, about a year after my mother had died and it had not gone well - I’ll just leave it at that for now - I don’t think I’m quite ready to relate personal stories at this point - and again - there are real time constraints - and to tell a story like that, one needs time.
My partner and I were living in Charlottetown at the time of his passing and I remember speaking to my eldest brother a couple of times during his illness and was advised that if I intended on visiting, waiting until he recovered would perhaps be best. We left it at that.
I continued on through the rest of 1998 getting occasional updates but, I was not worried, nor did I spend any time thinking about him, really. In 1999, my partner and I booked a holiday to Paris - we’d not been in awhile and, though cliched, Paris can be beautiful in the Spring.
It was about a week before we were to leave when the news arrived - my father had died. I accepted it in the same way one might accept the arrival of a summons - concerned about the rejigging of events in order to accommodate an unforeseen occurrence and slightly irritated about it all - I know, it’s harsh, but like I said - we weren’t close.
That evening, I remember sitting in a cozy little bar called Off Broadway with my partner, who seemed more concerned about the passing of my father than I did myself - I should say, his concern was for me and how I was handling it - I think he might have been expecting more of a reaction. Funny thing was, I wasn’t having much of a reaction; I didn’t feel a thing.
It was only when I began discussing how this would not interfere with our plans, and that I had no intention of going to my father's funeral that something cracked - but just a little. I shed a tear or two - and then it was over.
You see, years before on that visit in 1980, I’d ‘cleared’ the air with him, I’d spoken my piece, I made it clear that this relationship (as an enabler) was going nowhere - but that I was - and where I was going was ‘away’ - and I wished him a nice life and closed the door on the source of much pain in my formative years - sometimes a child just has to cut the string.
I don’t feel badly for having done that - to save myself, it needed to be done. No, I feel sad at his loss - I’ll leave it at that.
Anyway, each year, on this date, I do think of him - if not with honour than at least with thanks for having participated in the event that led to my birth - and I hope he rests well.
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