Sunday, 16 June 2024

Sorry Dad, We've Let You Down

Today is Father’s Day, the day when we pay tribute to the men who raised us, biological or otherwise, and because Father’s Day is so close to the anniversary of my own Father’s passing I’ve been thinking about the old man quite a lot over the past few days. Which is why I’m posting this here now.

Dad, I’m sorry.

Mum and Dad had ten kids, spread out over twenty years, with me being the youngest. At this moment in time there are seven of us still around. I had a sister who died when she was still an infant, a brother who I never really knew who died in his forties and another brother who died in his fifties.

By the time Dad passed away he’d been a widower for nearly eight years, and his dying wish was that his family should stay together, should stay connected with each other, and should be there to support each other through good times and bad.
Well, we certainly fucked that one up, didn’t we?

I tried my best. I kept in touch with as many as my siblings as I could. I telephoned them and visited them, not wanting anything from them, just to see how they were, to make sure they were okay. I even opened my home to some of them when they had none of their own.
Some of them, one of them in particular, repaid me as it were, and still does to this day, but even back then it was obvious that these weren’t two-way relationships.

As the years went on it seemed as if those of us who didn’t get married and didn’t have kids became less and less important. The phone calls and the visits we hoped for never happened. We often found out about things by chance, things such as marriage breakdowns and the like, and the advent of social media meant that events such as hospitalisations, wedding and even suicide attempts were often found online.

Whenever I found out that someone was ill I’d send a message wishing them well, but that often went unanswered. When I tried to drum up support for a 50th birthday message for a brother I was greeted by a “yeah, but it’s only a number” kind of reply from someone who brought me a tankard for my 18th birthday, the same person who promised to make a big deal for my 21st (they never did though.)

These days I’m content to follow suit as it were, because after a nephew posted on Facebook that his father was ill in hospital a few years ago said “that’s the done thing these days.” There just doesn’t seem any point in ringing around people to tell them what’s going on with my life and how I’m feeling, especially those who have grown so far away from me they either don’t reply or try to gaslight me.

If you want to find out how I’m healing after my lung and diaphragm surgery, or you want to know how I get on with the battery of tests before I see the cardiologist next month keep your eyes on my blog or my social media accounts to find out more. Just don’t complain when a guy called Sheldon from New England or that Australian bloke who used to send me wrestling DVDs find out before you, because, after all, it’s the done thing these days.

And Dad, and Mum as well, sorry we’ve let you down. I’m willing to take the blame if the others do as well.

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