For someone with no religion, believe in spirit and the supernatural or anything else that isn’t real, it may come across as strange to my loyal reader that one of my very favourite authors of fiction is Richard Bach. His books are always about flight and include some of the wildest imaginings about space, time and, now and then, God-type characters. It’s nonsense, but it’s usually beautiful nonsense and you can drift away within the pages and pretend it’s all true, just like when you watch the wrestling on telly. Once upon a time, Bach wrote a book called ‘There’s no such place as far away”. In it, Bach wrote: “Can miles truly separate you from friends… If you want to be with someone you love, aren’t you already there?” I thought for years this was true, and that was before the arrival of Skype and the like. I no longer do.
The nature of my upbringing, my childhood and much of my adult life was of the people I loved living many miles away. My Dutch mother brought me up on her own in Bristol, but her entire family lived in the Netherlands. She had a brother who I don’t remember ever coming to the UK so I only saw him – my only uncle – when we went to Rotterdam. Because of that, I believe, I was never close to him or his wife, my only auntie. Other relatives, mostly distant relatives, I rarely saw, if ever. Miles certainly did separate us. Given that until I was a teenager, we never even had a telephone, we rarely engaged.
Many of my childhood friends were in Rotterdam, where we went every other summer for the entire school holidays, and once I was in secondary school those visits all but ended. I felt very different from everyone else I knew.
My father’s side was even more confusing. Dad was in the merchant navy and I have no recollection of him ever loving with my mum and me, although I am told he did just that when I was very young. He had no brothers or sisters so I had no uncles and aunties in this country, so my main connection with my paternal side was through my grandparents.
My dad and I had a relationship that he tried much harder than I did to maintain. By the time I was 12, I was already having issues trying to work out who I was, why I was here and why it was I was having panic attacks and night terrors. Over the years, I wanted nothing to do with pretty well anyone in my family or, if I am being honest, anyone else. My dad tried the long distance love thing from Canada where he had lived since the 1960s and I am sorry to say that for many years I just wanted to be on my own. I had no idea what family love was or meant. Things weren’t great as they were but at least I knew my place in the world, which was usually behind closed doors with the curtains drawn.
My former wife, whom I seldom mention on these pages, said I was “too close to (my) mother” which was as far from reality as it was possible to be. We undoubtedly loved each other but in many ways we were chalk and cheese. From around 22 years of age, I was living on my own, after my mum moved in with a new partner who she later married. I didn’t reject her, as I had frequently done with my dad, but our weekly visits were, for many years, more of an obligation than any real desire to be there. It was something I did and now I’m very glad I did it. When she got older and sicker, I managed to get my head together and remember how valuable that relationship was.
They say you don’t miss what you don’t have and that’s true in this case. I never missed having a father figure around at the time because everything felt normal, even though it was far from normal. It rarely occurred to me that all my mates had dads living with them, at least at the time. As I grew into adulthood, it was then I realised I had got there without a clue of how to conduct myself and what to do with my life. Miles truly separated us and nothing he could do, by way of letters, visits and eventually telephone calls could change all that.
Fast forward to today and my desire to be around my family is more intense than ever. I never want my children, who are now grown up men, to be fair, to put up with long distance love because I always think how I ended up. It is hard enough for me that my sons live the other side of Bristol or in the Midlands! That’s far enough away for me. Seeing them once or twice a year, or even less, would render life pointless as far as I am concerned.
I have two lovely brothers from my dad’s second marriage who have usually lived in Canada and I see them far less frequently than I would like to (this is a huge understatement). And many years pass by between seeing my dad’s late wife, technically my stepmother, who also lives in Canada. “Can miles truly separate you from friends… If you want to be with someone you love, aren’t you already there?” That applies even more so to family.
I am not the only person with family halfway around the world, or even just a few hundred miles away and obviously people feel absences differently. The occasional meetings I have with much loved relatives are as treasured by me as they are real. I just wish they were more frequent.
The past shaped my present as it will shape my future. Long distance love was better than no love but sometimes it was a close-run thing. People, friends and family, mean more to me than anything than they ever did before. This is not a trial run, time is running out and I am trying to put my priorities in order. Every single one stands a country mile behind those I love. And I am never truly happy unless they are nearby.
