Flashing By

Oh hey, I blinked and now it's September.... bloody hell, 3 months til the C word, the first one I will have to spend enforced time with my mother, and my ex, oh great, kill me now. The first one without father and that will be weird but I fully intend to cook dinner for my mum this year and she'll do absolutely nothing, I have decided, she deserves to be spoilt for once, it's up to me to make it happen, and I will, I'm a determined pro in the Christmas lunch stakes.

The guns didn't get valued and I'm a bit suspicious why, the guy that was supposed to do it just gave mum his 'expert' opinion, hmmmmm. I know dad trusted him to be the car mechanic and because of him the car passed the MOT today but a gut feeling doubt is niggling at me that something doesn't smell entirely right with this whole scenario. He reckons dad's best gun is only worth about £250, that doesn't sound right.... I may be wrong as I am no expert but I will research it. If it's indeed a low value item then I may as well keep it for the memories, I have a watch, a hammer and a potential gun as my inheritance and that'll do me, don't want a stake in the house thanks very much, that's mum's.

Had quite a bad hypo tonight, that's 2 severe ones in about 3 weeks, maybe I should consult the diabetic nurse?

Standing Our Ground

My first visit to a solicitor today, lucky me, I've not been arrested or anything... yet, this is all probate related, ah we love that word, it's my mother and myself's fave word right now... not! It looks like we'll be going through it whatever happens as the 'estate' (I use that term loosely) is too large, er, it's just a house, which belongs to my mother, when it's all sorted. I'm going to keep quiet and say nothing about my supposed share of it, I don't want anything from my mother, I'm not sucking at life so I'm perfectly happy to plod on as I am, leaving her to decide her own destiny, for the first time in her life. Apparently it needs adding to the land registry or something, more money, they know how to extract it well it seems.

It's all gobbledygook to me, I'm sure they understand it all, well at least I hope they do! It all needs to be done before any changes so we have to get mum's house valued so we know exactly the prices for fees and suchlike, fun. The guns are being valued tomorrow, so another loose end tied up as we find out the worth of that lot. I'd still like to keep it but I'm resigning myself to the fact I may not be able to, in fact my interest is waning when I think about the £150 and how that could take me on a relaxing holiday to Yorkshire instead.... I'm torn. I'm not money driven at all, the value of the Aya gun wouldn't sway me unless it could cure all our money woes in one hit, then it might, purely as a consequence of father's inability to think things through his only offspring could lose out on keeping it as an important memory, a legacy gone because he thought he was cleverer than he actually was, sad thought really but what can I do? Rock and hard place. Meh, it'll sort itself out in time, I can't drive myself nuts any more over it, I'd be joining the father in the hole if I carried on the way I was, not healthy.

The Lost Days

Oh God, it's Thursday, yep it was the trawl around the supermarket with mother time, fun and games as usual. Woke up and was so befuddled I thought it was Monday instead, all the days are blending into each other still, although we're trying our best to get back to 'normal' it's just not the same, obviously.

As the days pass by I'm finding that now my first thought in the morning isn't of my dear old dead dad, which I'm not sure is good or bad, I feel like it's been way too easy to 'move on' and I should still be in sackcloth and ashes but I think I separated myself from him a long time ago, removed myself from his immediate orbit, I had to so I could survive the utter torment he caused me for the best part of 30 years, how sad is that? It is very true though, when I'm at home it's easy to pretend nothing has changed because I rarely saw him, I couldn't be around him even though I wanted to more than anything, he just hurt me too much and I couldn't allow that to continue, for my own self preservation. I was preparing myself to lose him funnily enough, I just had a feeling it would happen, on my birthday I somehow knew it would be the last one I'd have him and now I'm scared my mum will die of bowel cancer because she won't be tested for it and I could end up an orphan within 18 months or something... I can't afford to bury her too and there's no charities for ex sewing machinists, I've feckin' looked already!!

I suppose thoughts of death are all around me now even though I'm trying to remain more calm and less in a frenzy about getting stuff done. We have the solicitor tomorrow, that'll be fun, I guess we're about to find out what sort of doo doo we're really in with regards to probate, get your cheque book out mother! Jesus, ok... I'm going on record to say I'd like to have kept your best gun dad but because you left us in a world of shit I may need to sell it to pay off the charges which seem to be growing by the day. I'm still trying to sell my Raleigh Talus mountain bike with no nibbles because I won't budge on the already cheap price, even though I'd rather keep it, I'd like the gun decommissioned but probate charges may dictate otherwise and I'll just have to live with it.

Grief wise, has it hit me yet? I don't know, maybe the vague feelings of sadness and regret I have now are as deep as it'll ever get, maybe I'm cold like my mother, maybe I just don't know what to do and how to feel in all this chaos. I wish it hadn't happened like this but we'd never have had the movie ending where everyone hugs and all is forgiven. We've had a letter come from the ICU dept of the hospital saying we can go see them to talk over what happened, I think we will as I think we both deserve answers, however painful that is, maybe that'll set me off again? When they told me dad was going to die I lost it right there and then, the correct reaction to such news, I was devastated those first couple of days but I feel like I've done my crying, but I can't help but feel incredibly guilty about the speed of that process. Here I go again giving myself a hard time, I just can't stop it.

The Eulogy

I haven't had a lot happen today so as promised vaguely a few posts back here's the full eulogy I gave my dad at his funeral, it's a bit long but hopefully worth a read.
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"First of all, my mother and I would like to thank you all for coming, we really appreciated the cards sent and the offers of support received. Although my father wasn't a great fan of leaving his armchair for gatherings  I'm sure he'd have enjoyed seeing you all here today.

Where to start is a hard one.....after all, I never expected a month or so ago I'd be standing here having to do this...... but If you ask me for one abiding memory that would sum up my dad, it's this old thing

(hold up his hammer)

Many of you that worked with him may recognise it, if I had a pound for every nail he ever hammered in with this we'd all be sitting on a tropical beach somewhere. It got used so much, if you were closer, you may notice that the end has completely worn round. At some point I seem to remember he decided he'd had his money's worth out of it and after a bit of grumbling at how much they'd gone up in price, he bought another, which ended up looking pretty much the same.

I'm keeping this to remind me of how hard he worked outdoors all his life, every day, in all weathers, to make sure I never went without anything, especially the blue and yellow BMX bike I was so desperate for and he bought me around my 10th birthday, which without doubt  made me the happiest kid in the UK. However, I regret to inform that sadly the carpentry gene appears to be missing from my DNA so this'll have to be purely ornamental.

I remember as a child I was his shadow, a real daddy's girl, he was my hero, wherever he was I was 3 steps behind. Particularly on a Saturday, wedged into the cab of his pick up truck like a sardine between him, Sally the dog and his friend Jack getting ready to enjoy an afternoon of pigeon shooting. When other kids were out with their friends I was happiest sitting quietly in hides, in hedges and ditches, playing with spent shotgun cartridges, which I guess gives me the love of the countryside I still have to this day.

Being allowed to shoot the airgun was another treat I realished, even though the old thing probably weighed nearly as much as me and I could barely lift the barrel off the floor! I remember the weekends we spent driving around country lanes together looking for good places for him to shoot, and him teaching me things like what different birds looked like in flight and what crops were growing in each field.

As I got older he taught me to drive over those fields in the summer when they'd been combined, not exactly straight from the handbook of the british school of motoring but I bet I'd make a great rally driver. Then there was all the weekends I got roped in as free labour collecting logs for the fire in the winter, long hot summer days and light nights with the radio blaring out in the truck as I loaded it up, there's so many songs I remember that still catapult me back to those carefree times.

I only ever saw my father scared once in his life, he was chainsawing a tree trunk when an adder slid out and I turned my head to see him charging off down the field at a pace Usain Bolt would have been proud of, it was then I discovered he wasn't a great fan of snakes.

He loved his vegetable garden, and whilst in the hospital he seemed more concerned about why his tomatoes weren't doing so great rather than losing a leg. He was always busy in the garden doing something, and unfortuately one of the hazards of that was if you stood still too long in one place you were likely to get a coat of creosote, I'll never forget the vile smell of that stuff as long as I live.
(he may well have given this a coat - points to coffin)

The very fact I'm standing here at all is somewhat of a marvel in itself I understand, when my parents married and mum expressed a wish for a family he was of the opinion an MGB sports car would be the preferable option, but we can clearly see who had the better persuasion skills out of the two of them. He did get his wish when he retired though and got his MGB, he loved it, and funnily enough that was a 1973 vintage like myself, fate almost.

In some ways my father and I were very alike, in other ways extremely different, and to be honest it didn't always make for plain sailing between us. As you can imagine, if he thought I'd done something daft he let me know about it with his typical frankness and then I'd have to stand there until he'd put me right. People often tell me I look like him (aside and wink- so at least we know it wasn't the milkman mum) and people say I have his mannerisms and slightly "explosive" disposition towards people who attempt to take liberties.

He certainly never suffered fools gladly and often I remember him storming through the back door, blowing off a few expletives whilst enlightening my mother on how he'd told so and so to stick their job where the sun didn't shine. He always seemed to have a plan B though, knew his worth as a tradesman was never out of work for long.

I suppose I could ramble on forever, if we were charging most of you would probably want a refund by now, but I'll wrap it up with a few memories of the last moments we shared together. He asked me if I'd get him a pack of polos when I next came up to see him, I always try to keep my promises so here they are dad.

(hold up polo mints)

His last words to me were "see you later mate"

And I'm sure I will. If I'd have known it would be the last time we spoke I may have thought of something more profound to say, but probably not, neither of us were much for soppy stuff and he's probably up there rolling his eyes at my words today.

But watch out dad, I'm breaking new ground here, here comes my best very sentimental parting shot.... you'll never be gone to me because I see you looking back at me every day in the mirror when I brush my hair, and sometimes when I open my mouth, without warning, I catch myself talking just like you did.

You were many things to many people, but to me you were just dad, and I'll miss you forever"