Dear Father

23 August 2023

Dear Father,

I really wish we had been able to get to know one another better…. 

Of course that was impossible because you died when I was eleven. 

Do you realise that we were very glad that you did not return home…. 

After your accident we didn’t even know you were in hospital… Well, of course, Mother must’ve known… but we children had no idea.

From my current life perspective I can honestly say that I had no idea where you were for those six months in late 1959 and early 1960.

I did not know that you had fallen out of the window in your boarding house. I did not know that you had fractured your skull, your pelvis and broken your arm.

I didn’t know that you didn’t know who you were anymore…. or that you thought your oldest daughter was your wife….. and she still looks like our mother.

It seems to me that I spent so much of my childhood in a state of suspended animation…. 

There was a TV program in the sixties which you missed…well you actually missed seeing TV all together…

Anyway, this program was called the Twilight Zone and it was all about weird events.. what they called SciFi….it was introduced each week by a man called Rod Serling. I found it very frightening and I was afraid to walk through the house to my bed after each episode.

I guess that’s how my life was….. 

I felt as though I was in some sort of parallel universe or something like that.

Sure I went to school every day…. and I came back home. I ate my meals, rudimentary, though they were!

I spent weekend days after my chores were completed…. taking my younger brother’s to the beach…to keep them out of mother’s hair….

As you know now, Kay went to Brisbane to live with Pat and her family after you died… and I was still too young for that of course…. 

I was going to primary school with Neil and Ian.

So that’s how my life unfurled.. just episode by episode.. frightened and uncertain… never sure what would happen next…. and yet, somehow, unable to actually populate my life.

So, if you were still here, Father I would ask you Why?

Why did you find it necessary to be such a bully??

—00—

Dear Anne,

I’m not entirely sure how I can answer your very valid ‘Why’ question.

I really didn’t know myself at all, and I certainly didn’t realise the trauma I was inflicting on my family of nine children.

Strange though it may seem, I actually thought I was a good father.

It must seem really strange to you, especially after you’ve just explained how you all felt about me?

In fact, I’m quite shocked! 

I did realise I had a little bit of trouble with alcohol… but I just thought it was a ‘medical’ problem… the doctors had told me a few months before the accident that my kidneys were damaged, and my body was pretty much messed up. 

So, yes, I understood that my body was suffering from my drinking habit.

I definitely did not recognise that my drinking was causing any trouble for my family.

Of course your mother told me so…. but I just thought she was nagging me as usual…. So I didn’t pay any attention.

As you know, we had continual arguments, especially around the kitchen table with all you children present.

But that’s an adults thing and nothing to do with children…. their job is simply to be seen and not heard.

So this is the first I am hearing of this concern you are expressing…. I’m not sure what you’re talking about with this TV program thing… Twilight zone, or whatever it is!

However, as you’re a grown-up now, you must understand how difficult it is to be a parent, to hold down a good paying job and ‘bring home the bacon’ and be the responsible parent of nine children.

—00—

Dear Father,

Yes I do understand how difficult it is to parent…. Actually, I only have one child…. not nine…and parenting was challenging for me.

Yes, I continued to work as a registered nurse throughout all my parenting years, so I do know what it’s like to hold down a paying job and ‘bring home the bacon,’ as you said.

I have spent the last fifteen years looking into our family history. I have looked into your family and also into mother’s family.

I have investigated your childhood to the best of my ability father, and from what I can understand, you had a slightly stern but loving father and a rather religious mother whose father was somewhat righteous… there was no sense of violence, and no alcoholism from what I can find in your family history.

I haven’t really been able to uncover the causes of your alcoholism, so I’m still stumped!

—00—

Dear Anne,

I’m also stumped!!

I have no idea why I drank….. even in retrospect. As you know, there’s all sorts of inquiries these days into what they call ‘attachment’ theory.

I honestly don’t have a clue… so if you find out, please let me know…. 

I really would like to know.

All I can say is that I am very sorry that my children feel the way they do about me. I didn’t expect my life to turn out the way it did.

I certainly didn’t expect that I would fall out that damned window… I was just going to the toilet… and I miss-stepped.

So, in all honesty, I guess this is one of the things we all have to learn….

Some problems ain’t got no solutions!!!

—00—

Dear Father,

Well, that is definitely true…. Some problems definitely don’t have solutions.

I accept your apology, and I accept you have no idea of the impact of your drinking on your family.

From this perspective of my life, I am now able to acknowledge and accept that you are the person you are.. regardless of our desires for a different outcome.

Vaya con Dios Father….