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I do like to read people’s messages about fathers day, mothers day and birthday and in memoriam pieces too.
I am always touched by those messages of love and even more so by messages of love and loss. They are personal, poignant and when people decide to share them with us, I love it.
Now me, I don’t do anniversary remembrances. And that’s just me.
My dad died on 28th February 2011, my mum died in 1999 (no idea of the date October, was it?).
I was, for most of my life, much closer to my mum, both physically and spiritually (not in the religious sense), but as the years went by my dad and I found each other in so far that two disparate folk could ever be.
My mum died suddenly; my dad’s death dragged out over two months, half the world away. I can’t even remember the year in which my stepfather died, nor any of my grandparents. Is it because I don’t care? Of course not.
I cried once when my mother died and that was when I rang her brother to tell him the news. Oddly, he didn’t seem at all bothered and after a subsequent awkward exchange of letters (ask your parents, kids) I concluded he didn’t seem bothered because he wasn’t.
I arranged the cremation, chose the music and moved on, occasionally cheered by the memories, occasionally dispirited by what I perceived was a lack of fulfillment in her life. But maybe that was my perception of what her life could and should have been. She never actually told me she wasn’t fulfilled.
And I moved on.
Of course I think about her from time to time and remember the love and sacrifices she made but I never felt melancholy or felt the need to make visits to the crematorium. What would flowers achieve?
I have no religious superstitions so maybe that was it. I never believed she would survive her own death and that we would somehow meet again so I must have decided, sub-consciously, to not waste time hoping for it.
I honestly don’t think about her on mother’s day any more than I think of her on any other day of the year. But I don’t begrudge for one moment those who do.
My dad is a different story.
For years, we were not that close – hardly surprising, you might think, given that he lived in Canada – but in latter times we grew much closer.
In 2004 I attended his 75thbirthday and five years later his 80th.
So the last time I saw him was in 2009. As I arrived at Ottawa airport to fly home, I never dreamed for one moment it would be the last time I would see him.
Two years later and I was flying across the pond to attend and speak at the celebration of his life (he didn’t do funerals, least of all his own).
Do I miss him? Very much, of course I do.
Do I wish he was still with us? More than anything.
So should I be having sentimental thoughts and shedding tears of what was and what could have been?
I cried all the way to Canada, off and on, following his death. I reasoned that this was because I had not prepared my mind for all the steps that I would be taking. I was a blubbering mess in departures, an angst-ridden wreck.
Perhaps the devout gain comfort from their faith and they believe they will meet the dead and when they too are dead? Good luck to them, I suppose, but the comfort doesn’t make it true.
Sometimes I walk through the beautiful churchyard near our house – it leads to the railway station – and I see people tending the graves of loved ones and laying flowers.
It’s rather sweet and, I guess, fulfills a need. A need to connect, a need to hang on to someone who has died, perhaps? I’m not going to knock it.
So it’s fathers day today, the day when shops make a fortune from people buying things to express their love for their dads, just like Christmas really.
The less cynical might say it’s a day to celebrate dad, dead or alive.
I’ll be in the less cynical camp for once.