He died 2
August 2012 at 130pm
A few days to
a week after he died, I wrote this.
I feel a lack
of closure that is beyond what I have ever experienced. I will never connect
with him, in anger, love, or forgiveness again. What was done was done. I have sobbed
silently for the loss of time and familial closeness. I have cried for my father's
stubbornness, and for my own inability to rise above it. While I tell
myself that I am at peace . . . I still weep - and the weeping comes in waves - some feel like tidal waves, some like a calm lake awakening . . . .
There comes a
point in your life and grief process that you have to remember the smaller good things and happy moments, and
forget or forgive the bigger not so good things . . . and that is the path I
have chosen to take at the end of all this.
But first I need to get all things off of my chest, and out of my head, and onto paper.
People are
asking if I saw my dad before he died, and are questioning why I didn’t go over
to England. While I do not have to
explain my decisions to anyone anymore, I will tell you that I did not feel the
want, nor the need, to go. I have seen a cancer death. Debs told me that I would not want to see him
this way, and I believed her – maybe I was also afraid of how I would react . .
would my emotional shield get cracked?
Would my strong façade fall to pieces? Would tough old Nicky show her weakness? Why was I afraid of appearing weak? so much to learn about myself.
People tried
to make me feel guilty for not going, told me he was probably hanging on just
waiting to say goodbye to us (me and my sister) – that was the worst thing they
could have said. . . and for a while it worked, and I struggled with my
decision. But now I am totally at peace
with it.
I was 7 when he left our family home; I was 15 when I was taken to
Canada; I was 21 the next time I saw
him, then I was 35 or so and for the last time at age 43. In all that time, we never talked about
anything substantive – I don’t know if there was really a lot left to say. We shirked the questions we both probably
should have asked; we could not seem to speak beyond basic pleasantries,
weather, TV, other things. When he
lived with Linzi here in Canada (in the late 1990’s early 2000’s) he would come
and stay at our house on the weekends – it would give Linzi a break and hopefully give
him a chance to connect with his 2 grandsons (never really happened).
I found, even then, the conversations stilted and difficult, forced and
strained – maybe too much time had passed for us to fix the relationship. Linzi was always searching for a relationship
with dad, and I felt so sorry for her as he never seemed to have any love left by
the time she came along . . . I cannot imagine how she must have felt . . I put
up an emotional brick wall, Linzi got a broken heart.
By this time I had pretty much sloughed it off I think – I had told
myself that there was no relationship there - easier to deal with that what I
felt was the unloving and non-acceptance of him as a father.
I remember that one night I just suddenly grew the
balls to ask him what I always wanted to ask. I asked him why he didn’t love
me. I think I shocked him. He very non- emotionally told me that he would
have loved me more if I was a boy, and that he wished it was always just 'him
and mummy'; and that he deliberately
refused to take us on weekends “to hurt Mummy”, because he was hurt he wanted
her to hurt. He put us in the middle of
his waging war against our mum.
To sit across the room from you father and hear those
words cut me to the core. I knew that he
was not going to win the Father of the Year award, however, I felt totally
unloved, unwanted and not needed at that moment. Why was I even bothering to be honest? The moment he said those words I wanted him
to leave, leave my house and leave my life.
I can remember the wall of protection go up higher around me, I can remember
the switch inside me move to the off position.
I can remember the feeling of emptiness and worthlessness. I guess even though we had not had the best
relationship, I still needed his acknowledgment and acceptance – I guess that
was not going to happen. This was the
day I totally shut him off emotionally. And I did not realize that until now.
The last time
I saw him was October 2008. I had no
plans of going to see him that year, or ever again, (could never afford a trip)
but a great friend of mine, Sue, gifted me with airline tickets, arranged it
all with my sisters without me knowing, and even booked the week off of work
with my boss. Debbie took me to the IOW to see my dad. I was still deciding the day before I got on
the plane as to whether I was going to visit him or not – Dean and I had many
talks about it. Debbie pretty much made
up my mind for me . . . . while it was not a very comfortable visit, too many
years had passed; I had told myself it was the right thing to do . .
.and that I would be a better person for doing this . . . and when I left I was
convinced that I was able to shut that door forever. Get that chore out of the way . . . . yes, I
thought of it as a chore to be honest.
Our visit felt strange. He seemed
pleased to see us as we stepped off of the ferry, and apparently had waited all
day – had got there early, but after 5 minutes we seemed to be like strangers
trying to make small talk. The
relationship really had not survived the distance and the hurt . . . I told
myself that day that I did not love him.
I told myself
after I returned to Canada at the end of that holiday, that I had closed that
chapter in my book of life, and that I was at peace with my decision that it
was going to be the last time I spoke to or saw my dad.
I have since found
out that I am probably the world’s best liar. . . I told everyone, many times,
that he was gone from my life – book closed, story over, and that I was totally
cool with it all. And I will swear on a
stack of bibles, and I truly believed that I was okay with it. I truly did
- I had no clue that I was lying to myself – I had told myself so many
times that it ‘just didn’t matter’ that I had begun to believe it. I created my ‘perfect little world’ of ‘I can
handle anything’ . . .I was surrounded by a big wall of concrete, and protected by a huge emotional shield . . . I was safe.
So, Debs
called from the UK and told me that dad was sick back in January 2012, I
replied “ok, well let me know when he dies” I felt no emotion . . out of sight,
out of mind. . . . . don’t forget, I was OK with this (world’s best liar). And I really thought I was ok . . . and I
really didn’t react emotionally, I just put up another huge block up in front
of me, added another layer to the emotional wall I have built around me,
probably since about the age of 11. I
was fine, good ‘tough old Nicky’ was not going to let anything through that
wall – I had it all planned out perfectly . . . so so perfectly . . .
Until . . .
early February I pop onto Facebook at work, and my whole day came crashing down around me, in a way I could never
have predicted. In fact, I would have
put money on the table against the emotions I was experiencing. The tears started flowing, not just slowly
and steadily, but accompanied by sobs, the feeling of nausea, the shakes – what
the hell was happening to me? It was all
because of a single photograph. A
photograph of my dad smiling with his great granddaughter by his side, he is
laying in his hospital bed, with charts on the back saying “Mr. Edwards’s fluid
intake”, “Mr. Edwards’s medical chart”.
But I saw three things clearly, his hands, his face and his eyes. You could see the cancer had taken hold – now
it seemed too real – now I really realized that I was about to experience the
imminent death of an immediate family member – my dad. After experiencing a visit with a cancer
patient only 6 hours before his death a few years ago, you could see that Deb
was right; it really is just a matter of time. That was 6 months ago . . . .
they gave him 6 weeks, and he made it 6 months.
My reaction scared the shit out of me . . . I became a wreck, I
cried for hours, had to leave meetings, close my office door. I became a mess . . . and didn’t understand
why. I felt like I cried for a week straight.
It took 2 friends to figuratively grab me by my ears and drag me
to the corner, sit me down and tell me the truth, and it hurt, and it still
hurts. It took them treating me like the
child I had locked away, like the emotional person I was trying never to be,
like the person that had suffered from abandonment and loneliness that I was,
they literally put me on the path to self-discovery. I came away from our chat feeling like I was
suddenly emotionally alive . . . a new me had been born . . . I knew that I
needed to find out who I was.
I started to recall my childhood a little bit at a time. I never really recall hearing a lot of “I love you” coming out of my dad’s mouth, and spoken to me, but that is another story. But when you look at his young life, maybe he didn’t know how to say it. He was the youngest of 11 children, born in the 1920’s and 1930’s. He probably didn’t hear those three magical words very often. He may have never known the strong love between a parent and a child – how much energy can you really have as a parent after the 11th child in 20 years? Who am I to now judge the lack of words to me? Pam, a close friend, made me realize this about a year ago when I first heard of dad’s onset of dementia. And those words have stuck with me ever since, and made me accept the small things that my dad did for me as his way of showing he loved me.
For 36 years I shut off my true
emotions, and now I am mad. Mad that he
refused to pick us up on weekends; mad that mum threatened to call the orphanage
every time he didn’t show up; mad that we seemed to be a chore to him; mad that
my cousins saw more of him that we did; mad that he ignored Linzi; mad that I
wasn’t a boy; so so so mad; mad that when my mum asked for him to take us for a
few weeks or months so that we could move back to England in 1981 he said
NO. Gee thanks Dad . . . . .
And the journey continues . . . . .
