No ordinary Jo

One of my biggest regrets – perhaps my very biggest regret – was not flying to see my dad in Ottawa in 2011 when he was sick and getting sicker. I should have stretched the credit card and worried about the cost later but I didn’t. Instead, I waited until he died, on 28th February 2011, and flew over for his funeral. My mind was full of its usual shit and it bogged me down. What if he got worse when I was there and I had to stay on and. maybe, on and on until he rallied, improved, got sick again until the circle finally broke one way or the other? In the end, I got it all wrong and the last time I saw him was in 2009 for his 80th birthday celebration.

I know it’s part of the emigrating story, especially when you emigrate across the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I first visited my dad in Canada in 1975 and didn’t fly there again until 2004 to celebrate his 75th birthday. I saw him every few years when he flew to Britain to see family and friends but those miles, you see. When my mum remarried, she went to live in Portishead which is a bus ride or a short drive from Bristol. I saw her every week until she died in 1999 but my dad – well, he might as well have been on the moon.

We were never close when I was young because he was either in the merchant navy, navigating the world, or he was moving to Canada. They say you don’t miss what you don’t have but now I know that’s not true. It took me until I was much older to realise the relationship with a dad, my dad, could have changed my life, made it better. Could, maybe, might have. Who knows? But it still haunts me today.

My dad was a storyteller. He was smart, charismatic, charming. By contrast, my mum who brought me up alone was a simple Dutch woman, who with only a basic education lived on her wits and learned in the school of life. She loved me with all her heart, tried everything she could but it wasn’t enough.

Anthony Johansen sailed the seven seas and not only graduated from the school of life, in middle age he graduated from McGill University in Montreal. People called him Jo but he was no ordinary Jo.

Because of my increasing insularity, I kept my distance not just from my dad but from everyone else and it was only later in both our lives that we found each other, to be like how fathers and sons are meant to be. But we missed all that stuff. And we missed it because of me. I can’t blame him. He made every effort to be a good long distance dad. I was a terrible long distance son.

And I should have been there for him. I should have taken unpaid leave from work just to be with him. I didn’t know he was going to die but that shouldn’t have entered my plans. He was ill, I should have been there for him, I wasn’t, my bad.

11 years have passed since I had a dad and now I am the oldest surviving blood relative to my mum and dad. And that 11 years has passed in a heartbeat, as time appears to accelerate almost beyond control before you shuffle off your mortal coil. Perhaps the one thing of value I have learned is to keep close those you love most. That’s no criticism of anyone, just something that suits me and the way I am about my loved ones.

I should have taken that Air Canada 767 and to hell with everything. Just to be there one more time. Poor decision. I really miss the old boy, who would have been 93 this year. I should have been there and I’m very sorry I wasn’t.