This will probably be a recurring theme over the next few months as I come to terms with the death of my dad and my feelings about his passing. Sorry ’bout that. I doubt it will be a morbid postmortem of his life, or a raft of “I’m so sad” posts because, all things considered, his passing does not effect me very much. So if you are a reader, please bare with me as I get over this and get back to being the little shit you know and love so well.
Today I have ignored two calls and one text message from Dad’s third wife. I don’t want to talk to her because it reminds me what’s happened and reminds me that I should, if generic-society-behaviour is to be considered, in mourning. I’m not. In fact, when my step-dad said to me today, “must have been quite a strange week, then, eh?” today, I had to stop and think a while on what he was talking about. “Oh yes, my dad died… that’s right”. When he was alive I thought of him very little. Now that he has passed I don’t see that changing. I think I came to terms with the lack of relationship I have with my father some years ago and I didn’t even realise. Maybe it was when I became a dad myself. Generations move on. Eventually I will die and Tom will have his family, and them their family and so on. People die, get over it. Are we to focus on the generation before, or on the generation to come? Where does our focus need to be?
Part of me doesn’t want to speak to her because she feels something like which I should be feeling. Great loss, a void, mourning. I don’t and in part I don’t want her to know that. How do you explain to the wife of your father that you’re not actually all that bothered that he’s dead? Well, you don’t without being a callous insensitive prick. I can be a callous, insensitive prick, but I have my boundaries. Something’s are just too close to the bone.
She said, in her message, that she “just rang 2 c how things where”. Things are very well, thank you very much. Joe comes to visit on Tuesday. I’ve just been paid. My belly is full and I have the next two weeks off work. That isn’t what she will want to hear and I’m not in the mood to lie. Don’t get me wrong. I lie easily, and I lie very well. But that doesn’t mean I always want to do it. Especially when there is little to be gained from lying.
When talking to J about this earlier I said that after the funeral the likelihood is that I will have nothing more to do with Dad’s new family. Wifey wants to keep in touch. She wants to meet Tom, meet J, spend time with me. Perhaps it is her way of dealing with the loss of her husband to cling onto the living remnants of his life. I don’t want to be reminded day in, day out, of my dad; Living or dead. I want to move on with my life. I’m 32 and I have so much to live for. I don’t want to be reminded of a dark chapter in my life. As I said in the previous post, I’m not sad he died, I’m sad we never had a relationship. But I made a conscious, adult decision on that front. Sure, he helped things by being just as stubborn as I am, but it was ultimately my decision to stop contact. He tried to rekindle something and I rejected it. I can’t say it’s not fair that the situation is how it is, because I chose the situation. I had no choice in losing him last week, but I made my choice seven years ago. I accept it. I live with it.
I’ve dealt with it.
Eventually I’ll have to call her back. I suppose even just to find out when the funeral will be. I will attend. I want to be with my brothers. My dad always said that he dreamt his sons would be together again at his grave. We will be.
