For Father's day
In the last few years I re-established a relationship with my father.
I used to say he and my late mother should never have had children. Now as I am awaiting the arrival of my fifth grandchild, I feel this is something for which, however indirectly, is something I have to thank the old man for.
I reached out to him after my mother died a few years ago. She was a religious maniac and made my childhood miserable, something about which he could not have cared less at the time, as he was too busy worshipping at the altar of the almighty pound note.
However, despite his constant disapproval of me, my lifestyle, my choice of partner, my choice of career and my mental health conditions, he turned to me for help and comfort.
I have supported him and my stepmother for the better part of decade now. I have a relationship with him, based mainly on the fact that he cannot remember my childhood. He has a deluded and fanciful rose-coloured memory of my mother that I have chosen not to correct since it makes him happy to believe it. I have helped him come to terms with the fact he is getting old and helped him get his health under control.
He is now the kind of man I always wanted for a father, he loves his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they like him and his eccentricities.
This past decade has wiped away much of the hurt of the previous forty-eight years.
Recently he has begun to loose the sight in his right eye and will very soon have to give up driving, something that has been the joy and for a large part of his life his purpose for living. It will probably be the last crisis I will have to see him through and it will be a strain for the stubborn old bugger and for me.
Today was Father's Day so bought him a complete box set of the 1970's comedy series “Porridge” starring Ronnie Barker, a nothing gift really, but because his old VHS copies had become useless to him when his old videotape player finally collapsed, he almost cried, something I have only twice before ever seen him do.
I think it was perhaps one of the few times he has been grateful to me and that meant the world to me.
So in return I am grateful that in the twilight of his life I can finally and honestly say, I love my dad.