Father to Son.

 

I think this one is going to be a little weird, its based around two similar coincidences, but as always, I’m getting ahead of myself!

This blog probably could be called jealousy (I know I have already used the title) I’m not sorry how my life has gone but I do feel as though I have missed something, but I’m not sure what, what I do know is that my mother did a bloody good job bringing two boys up all on her own with next to no help from anybody, she’s the person that makes me proud!

I do believe I’m the product of my father, at least some of his traits, well at least his hairstyle! a person I haven’t had contact with since Christmas Eve 1973, I have covered some of this in previous blogs, but I have never nailed it to the mast so to speak, when I started this blog I spewed 9000 words like there was never going to be another tomorrow, and a lot of it was way more weird than what this will turn out to be, our family unit simply got on with it, we were two young boys and my mother explored options of going back to the work place after being a stay at home mother for 13 years (remember the days when mothers could stay at home and look after the kids, you didn’t need two wages simply to survive), I know I have covered this part of my life, we all grew thick skins and took revenge on the asshats that made our life hell when it was their turn.

I never really thought about him in my life after he left, he left, he didn’t want to have any connection to his son’s life, like the earth, life moves on, he left when I was 7 and disappeared totally from our lives two years later, Christmas Eve, I know I have written about that night, it’s the main reason why I hate Christmas, so obviously it affected me and I simply didn’t know it had at the time. Life moved on, we did our best, I fought with my brother, he fought with me, we defended each other when we had to! we both had a love of music and by and large we were good kids, we weren’t perfect but we tried our best, I’m sure my brother got up to crap that I didn’t know about, and I know I got up to a ton shit he has no idea about.

School finished, I went in the army I was medically discharged; I came back home with no game plan and no clue about life, the one time in my life I could probably have done with a father he was no where to be seen, or so I thought! We will circle back around to that at some point, I was a drunk, more than likely an arsehole, although that was never my intention, it appeared that my ship was leaking and I simply didn’t even have the skills to pump it out, I met a girl and married her (big mistake) she knew my issues and I honestly believe now that she played on them, got what she wanted then fucked around, was I in the right frame of mind, probably no more than 25% of the time, I tried getting help from the family group, but it would appear that it was a no go area, suck it up buttercup, so I sailed for fresh horizons with my hold still full of issues, again I wasn’t trying to be difficult I simply didn’t have the tools to deal with my issues, thankfully I took my foot off the drinking pedal, that helped, I still drank, boy did I drink, but finally I met the wife and she did all the good things in my life, the leaks were still there but I had an equal I could sound off to, although even in those early days I knew that I could be “difficult” I needn’t have worried the wife soon brought me back to earth!

I had been with the wife nearly two years when she took an interest in family history, she struggled with hers but by and large she found my family quite quickly, I had tried to ask pertinent questions about my mother’s side of the family before I met the wife. I was interested only in my mother’s side of the family, some names I knew, I simply wanted a little more of the back story, I was met with a total wall of silence, my mother simply didn’t wish to discuss it, so when I tried my namesake Uncle, all I got from him was, “what has your mother said”, when I replied “nothing” his reply was “that’s what you will have to make do with”, my jaw simply hit the ground, was my family a set of sleeper agents, I doubt it but it would have been easier to get information from the KGB, I kid you not.

So again I slipped away from my moorings with no further information, and I simply put it to the back of my mind, I was annoyed but being annoyed wasn’t going to win the day, I was honest and told my mother I wasn’t looking for my father, I simply wanted to know about our family, unfortunately we never spoke on the subject again, my brother would simply get angry if I tried broach the subject with him, he was angry that our father had left, my brother is the double of our father, I took after my mothers side, my brother legally had my fathers name removed as he was so pissed off at him, my brother and father shared a fondness for cricket (yawn) and they both played for local teams (not at the same time), at one game someone mentioned that our father was a good bloke and that my brother was the spit of him, my brother had to be dragged away and the first over he bowled against him, the gentleman suffered just a tad, he was sent by ambulance to the local hospital, a broken jaw I believe, my brother was quite good at the game, maybe my brother had bigger issues than me!

My wife wasn’t put off and I decided I wanted to know where my mothers father was buried I knew the church, but him being buried in 1963 the year before I was born, being a Scotsman he refused to pay for a stone, and by the time I took an interest the church yard had fell into disrepair, we found who was looking after the church and we sent off a request for information, I then forgot about it, about 6 weeks later we got a lovely letter from the Curate of the church who gave me a ton of information including his grave site (one of three unmarked graves in the church yard) and loads of information about my mothers family, documents and lots of information we hadn’t asked for, if only it had ended there, the last paragraph detailed my fathers side of the family and where his parents lived, I never met them,  other than his brother who I met once and I knew his sons kind of, my brother was in the same senior school so I suppose he had some kind of interaction what I don’t know and I now have no intention of ever asking!

The last sentence stopped me dead, it said that my grandfather lived with His son Norman until 1986 in his family home, now I knew where that home was, I drove past it everyday for 7 months while I worked for the National Coal Board, at a time when me his youngest son was suffering severe mental stress and could have done with a helping hand, I drove past the house twice a day, nearly twenty years of torment poured out of me and I got just a little drunk and I was as angry as I had ever been, I lashed out at my mother and brother and it was touch and go as to whether the family group would stay together, but they both denied knowing that my father had indeed been there, time healed the rift and it simply was never mentioned again, although I struggled to believe that they didn’t know he was there as my other uncles wife’s family lived around 30 yards away and they knew who my dad was, now something that I thought hadn’t bothered me started to gnaw at my very soul and it would always resurface at my darkest hours, I have no idea why someone who could have some semblance of  relationship with his children wouldn’t, was there something that the family had done to warn him off, I have no idea as the only members of the family I speak to (we are not a big family, there’s a couple of other cousins who choose not to speak to me, they do speak to my brother) is my brother and a cousin and his wife who live in Scunthorpe, the days indeed got darker, it was there and then that the doubts sprouted like weeds, I could pull them out but they would always come back, insidious thoughts deep in the dark!

We got on with life My mother died aged 70 in 2004, and life went on, the weeds came through less but they were still there, and the questions oh so many questions, did he have another family, had he remarried, things that in reality shouldn’t have bothered me did, simply as I imagined him and his new family enjoying Christmas, did he ever think of us his two boys, did he ever think of that Christmas Eve when he sat and watched from a warm pub while his two young sons stood in the dark waiting for him to appear, something he did when a policeman who was walking the beat (remember when they did that) asked me and my brother what we were doing, he turned up out of the nowhere saying he had been held up and he was going to take us home then, maybe my distrust of people started at that moment. What doesn’t help me on Christmas eve is that I live 100 yards from that spot the pub and the telephone box is still there!

Was this when I became a problem, is this when I tried too hard to have friends, I notice a lot of my friends from home have distanced themselves from me, is this the reason, was I difficult? probably, but I would have done anything for them (and I did frequently)  now I can hear you asking what has brought this back to the front of my mind, well the wife has started again picking at the threads of the families, she is still struggling with hers, but again she rattled through mine finding out a little more, and then came the kicker, when we had asked the church about my Poppa (grandfather) in 1993, it turns out that my father was already dead he actually died in 1990, he had been dead over three years by the time we asked.  I don’t know how, I don’t know where he was living, how he was or indeed anything at all about his life, not that he seemed bothered about mine! and now I feel just a little guilty, but why the hell should I?  I found out 31 years after the event that the man was dead, and who knew, I have no clue as to who I should ask, I’m certainly not going to have the conversation with my brother as I don’t wish to fracture the one remaining thread from my family suit, where do I go from here?

I love the family that me and the wife have created, I always tried to be a better dad than I had, I didn’t always succeed, I was a little bit too much a company sergeant major at times, I love my girls so much, thankfully I’m better with the grand kids, hey I wasn’t too bad with the girls but I always felt as though I had let them down. The one thing that haunts me and it’s making me doubt many of the things that I knew, is what I knew was it the truth or was it something that my actual family created and for some reason I was left out of it, I fear that in the future to come it will simply raise more questions than answers.

This was originally just over 9000 words of bile and anger, I hope by the time I publish it will simply be around 2400 words that have been polished into some semblance of order, I’m sitting somewhere between hating everybody who knew their dad and not having a clue what to do, except I do know I am indeed very jealous of those that knew their dads, mine may have been a cock I simply have no information to base it on other than what my family told me, and I’m not sure that I believe their narrative after all of these years, it would appear that I have to sail the seas like the Flying Dutchman filled with doubt and pity, a cargo I would much rather dump overboard and live a happier life, I haven’t so far, so I doubt its going to be fun and high spots from here on in!

And there you have it, my thoughts even if they have heavily redacted, and I’m back once to having an awful lot of sailing metaphors , I’m hoping that that will be a happier parlance than before, to those readers who know my story intimately, love your family even if they are shits, they are your only family, because once they are gone that’s it over and done, no second chances, no release, from all of the things that you have inside you, stay safe, stay alive, until the next one, play nice………..Toodles.

 

I just realised I’m now an officially an orphan!