There are different meanings of the word loss. You feel the loss of a parent, as I have done three times counting my stepfather, and you may feel the loss of what might have been. Piecing together parts of my life for a greater writing project, when it comes to my father, who died in 2011, my loss is greater in the sense of what might have been.
This would have been an anathema to Anthony Johansen who frequently advised me that there was no point in worrying about things that you could not change. Given that I have spent much of my life doing little else, I’m afraid I never took his oh-so-wise words as seriously as I should have done. I would probably have been a very different person had I done so.
When Anthony departed this earth on 28 February 2011 my first emotion was obviously sadness. Losing the man who was jointly responsible for putting me on this earth was traumatic. Of course, I cried and I cried for me. At least I think I did. That’s my honest memory. As the days and weeks went by, I realised my tears were of self-pity and, for once, got my act together. I was not the only person to have been bereaved. I can’t say I wasn’t embarrassed by my initial feelings.
Apart from a short period in the 1960s, Anthony had a job where he was away from home, working in the Merchant Navy. I don’t have the date of when he and my mother, Elly (this was not her real name: that was Neeltje, but Elly was much easier) separated and divorced. I am not going to bother to try and find out, either, because, as Anthony would doubtless point out, it would change nothing. I missed having a dad around, though.
I have literally no recollection of Anthony living at home with us, although I am told he did. Perhaps, I was so young the memory has faded away completely, or my brain has managed to shut down that part of my life. I miss what I never had. I didn’t realise this at the time.
Elly always told me to stay in touch with Anthony. She never said a single bad word about him to me and given her social network was virtually non-existent I can’t imagine she told anyone else.
I thought I was ‘normal’ as a child and I can honestly say I didn’t anguish about not having a father in the same house as my mother. That anguish came later. My scholastic career was a train wreck, my knowledge when I finally left school was pitiful. Elly, from the Netherlands, a stranger in a strange land, did her best to guide me and so did Anthony, albeit from the other side of the Atlantic. Looking back, he did everything a father in his situation could. And Elly, not particularly educated herself and with English her second language, did her best too. Separated by thousands of miles, they did what they could. Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, my life could have been so much better.
Everything I did at school, all my hobbies and pastimes, I had to do alone. It is no surprise I emerged from school with one O level and literally no understanding of basic arithmetic, science or any of the practical subjects. If I played football, I did it by my own initiative. If I read a book, the same. By the age of 12 I’d started 50 glorious years of poor mental health. Before I was even 13, life had started to pass me by.
Because of this lone parent background, with a mother and paternal grandparents who were essentially hermits for most of the time, it was inevitable I would go the same way. And to this day, I’d rather stay in my house, my comfort zone, than venture elsewhere.
It’s because of my own efforts that I managed to hold down a largely dead-end job in the civil service for nearly 40 years, whilst fighting mostly a rearguard effort trying to stay sane, for want of a better word. I should be proud of that, not least because of the life I have led with my partner – 30 years now – and my lovely sons. And I am. Yet I still look back with great sadness of a life wasted, of opportunities that never materialised, of the acceptance of the idea that just getting by would be enough to justify my existence. It doesn’t.
In retrospect I offer no criticism of my parents for divorcing when I was a child. Sometimes relationships are not meant to be. And it certainly isn’t their fault that my life has trodden an often lonely path to nowhere.
Of all those who’ve passed, I miss what could have been with Anthony above all else. I could have learned so much from his wisdom, benefited from his life experiences, found a better way. But it was not meant to be.
I am not one for commemorating family deaths either and, with the exception of Anthony, I don’t have the first idea the dates, or even the years in some cases, when relatives died. I feel his loss more than ever and, for reasons I shall give elsewhere, a great deal of my loss is my own fault. Which makes me more guilty for my shortcomings than anyone else.
