Dad

Two weeks ago my dad died, suddenly and unexpectedly, from complications after a surgery. We are all in shock. Death comes to us all in the end, but still, it is often a nasty surprise. Two weeks ago Dad was living a normal life, doing his thing, and then he was gone, and he will always be gone. That is the inexplicable part of death. Here, then not here. We who are left behind are still shaking our heads and wondering what just happened.

The other unsettling thing about death is that life goes on around it. The sun keeps coming up, the seedlings need watering, the bills need paying, we need to vote, we all still have to eat and feed the cats. Life is so insistent. A funeral, paperwork, hosting afternoon tea for all the uncles and aunties, having a houseful of grown-up children all of a sudden. And outside on the street there are all these other people walking around who are not going to a funeral today, who have not lost their dad, who are just living their normal lives. It seems extraordinary that that was me two weeks ago, just walking around with not a thought in my head that Dad would be going, that he would be gone. He is not here, a Dad-shaped hole in the fabric of our lives. 

He has been there all my life, fifty-two years of a dad there in the background of everything I do, and for Mum he has been a constant presence for fifty-four years, right there, without fail. And now, where he was, he is not.

"I keep thinking of things I want to tell him," says Mum.

It is the little things that sneak up and grab me. Mum asked me to pick up the things we had forgotten to bring home from the hospital. The kind nurse hands them over, passes on her condolences. And there I am holding Dad's red sponge bag, the same one he has used for the last forty years or so, and his glasses, just ordinary reading glasses, the everyday things that he used, and now here they are, without him. Things that mean Dad, but are not Dad.

And here we are, going on in time; it's two weeks now, since he went, and soon enough it will be a year, and then a decade. Our days will go on, but his have stopped. He is outside of time now, timeless.

I saw someone who looked liked him the other day and sobbed all the way home. There are still people on this earth who remind me of my dad, who are like him, but no-one is him, the particular flavour of human being that he was has gone from us and will not come our way again.

The sun still rises each day, the garden still blooms. I am back at work, I wash my hair, I make dinner. And yet. The world has tilted a little. The balance has shifted. A man who was my Dad, a man who enjoyed his life, a man who was loved and valued by many, a man with a very cheeky smile, has gone through a door and shut it behind him. I am almost waiting for him to pop his head back around the door and grin and say, "I'm back, I was only joking!" He'd do that.

But it's not a joke and he's not coming back. He's put his hat on, strapped on the old red rucksack, and headed out the door to his next adventure. 

Bye, Dad. I hope that wherever you are, there's plenty of cake xxx