Monday 16 June 2014

Dad



Today is my Dad's birthday, had he been alive today he would be 94. I was 23 when he died and felt the world developed a glitch in its timeline the day he left us. For a long time after he had gone I would hear his voice in the street or catch a glimpse of him turning around a corner or passing through a door ahead of me. At 23 I thought I was all grown up and able to cope, turns out I still miss him even at 52.

I can't remember his voice quite so clearly as I once did. Each morning, after I wake up I lie for a while checking the mental outfit that turns me into Rebecca: Mother, employee, friend, neighbour, once daughter... I think only briefly about my father. He is now a faded, softer memory, distant in the background of a scene that has more new characters than old. It is more likely now that I have unexpected but happy reminders:

His perfectly timed humour is something that endeared him to many, more often than not bordering on the inappropriate. I think of him as always being calm and kind, deeply analytic. I share his love of science fiction and art. When I was five and had chicken-pox, he set up two mirrors between the lounge room and the hallway so that I could watch Dr Who in bed.




He dressed well- in that sixties way, soft body shirts in olive and beige and he wore a suit and tie more often than not. I still have his cuff-links. I would love to watch him shave and listen to him whistle, boy could he whistle. He was in the air-sea rescue division during World War II, a mere boy, and lived a great deal of his life acutely aware of the sinister and ever present Cold War. He was brilliant at Maths and after he died we found exercise books filled with Maths equations.

He taught me how to knit, read a map - a real map using coordinates, how to paint interiors and how to smoke apparently, looking at the photo below!




He smoked like a train and I remember him laughing at me when I would have a go at rolling a cigarette ... imagine that now! The smoking was the end of him of course, along with the many shirts and trousers which suffered the glowing ash of a Capstan Ready Rubbed. Knowing his love of all things futuristic I wonder how he would have embraced the age of social media and smart-phones. He would be impressed and probably an *Apple bitch. I think he would fit right in.




Happy Birthday Dad

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