How will you feel when you get the call ………

How will you feel when you get the call ………

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I didn't realise I was doing it. It was only as I was driving back home with my little girl Robyn that she made me aware of something that I wasn't aware of at a conscious level.

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She was only ten years old but already had an old head on her shoulders and wisdom beyond her years.

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“Why don't you ever look at Granddad when you speak to him” She uttered as much out of confusion as interest.

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All of a sudden, I realised that I hadn't actually looked my father in the eye since I was eleven years old. But I couldn't tell her that he had abused me physically and mentally for thirteen years from the age of seven.

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“I don't know darling” hoping that would be the end of the conversation.

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Not happy with my short dismissal of her question. She looked at me and frowned.

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“How would you feel if I didn't look at you when I spoke to you.”

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I had no answer for her. But she was right. It had been 29 years since I had been able to look at him.

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Shortly after I was reading a book, and it outlined an exercise whereby you went back in time and met the person when they were younger. You told each other your story and what had happened to you. My dad told me about his difficult childhood and how he used to watch his mother chase my grandfather around the house with a kitchen knife and how his mother had treated his sister so badly that she left home at age fourteen with no money and nowhere to stay. He told me about how his baby sister had died when they lived in Sark. This troubled him deeply as the dead baby was kept in the house for weeks after her death and his mother would force all three children to kiss her goodnight before they went to bed.

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It was only then that I got to appreciate what his life had been like and after the exercise I found my feelings soften towards him.

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He had been very ill for years. One Sunday morning I dropped into visit and as we sat there something was said and we both began to laugh. As we did the laughter stopped both of us in our tracks. We hadn't laughed together since I was in single digits, so this was a strange and emotional situation. But not only were we laughing we were looking at each other for the first time in over two decades.

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For the next six months we spent a lot of time together and there was always at least a little laughter.

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Then one day the call came. It was my mum. It was the 2nd of December 2008 at 10.05 am on a Sunday morning.

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“Have you heard the news.”

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“No, is it Gran.”

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“No, it's not your gran, you'd better sit down.”

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I drove to my dad's house as fast as I could. As I entered the room, he was lying there asleep on the couch. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to hug him. But I couldn't. I told myself that I would hug him in the funeral home. But when that time came, I couldn't do that either as he was no longer recognisable to me. His badly lined face now had no lines on it at all.

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I had wondered about this day all of my life. Since I was 16 years old, I had asked myself the question. When my dad died would I feel free or devastated and now I had my answer although I hadn't considered that the answer might be a little more complicated than that.

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I was devastated. But it wasn't just because he had died. The pain I felt which permeated the very core of my being and felt like my heart was being torn from my body. It was because now he could never be the father I needed him to be. I realised in that moment that at some level at 42 years of age I was still waiting for my dad to take me in his arms and hold me. Tell me that he loved me. That he was sorry and that everything was going to be ok.

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And now I knew that this was never going to happen.

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The morning of his funeral. I went to the rock at Belcroute bay where we used to fish together in the days before life turned bad. As I stared at the rock I saw him there. He was in his trademark jeans with his Guernsey jumper and his blue denim fishing cap. I watched him as he baited his hook and cast his line into the sea. He turned and looked at me and smiled. I heard a noise behind me which jolted me. I Looked to see what it was but there was nothing there. I turned back to look at him, but he had already gone. I ran to the rocks to look around, but he was nowhere to be seen. I felt a sense of panic within me. But he was gone.

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As bad as things were he was my father. I loved him as much as any boy could.

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I love you Dad x.

#abuse #resilience #mentalhealth #mindset #storytelling #motivationalspeaker #coach