This article may show some upsetting images.
In 1968 the words “till death do us part” where spoken in a church in Grays by my parents. Fast forward to 1996 and it was the end of their marriage. It’s painful to sit down and put pen to paper to talk about this, it was a very difficult time. I loved my parents and as an adult one understands everything that is going on. To make matters worse, I worked alongside my father day in and day out. Did I think anything was going on, I did not have a clue. Years before, I would not only work with him, but also spend a lot of time socialising with him. To see his attitude towards me change, it was indeed very painful. Some days he would be his old self, other days he would take a lot out on me. If he had any issues with the separation and later the divorce I would be in the firing line. I soon realised I needed to work away from him. I was offered a new job working as a recruitment consultant that got me away from construction for about 18 months.
Due to the cost of buying a house that needed restoring, I was soon back in the construction game alongside my father, but he was more settled in his new life.
My mother had locked herself into her work and moving on from the family home, heading for pastures new. It’s funny when I went with her to look at her new house I had to tell her that my father’s construction company had been a contractor on the project and I had fixed the reinforcement in the footings. Myself and a chap called Dave Heath, who was also my father’s great friend, had worked on site with me.
Looking back, it was a strange time emotionally speaking, it felt like a no-man’s land as far as my relationship with my father’s family. My grandfather had passed away and myself, my sister and my mother went to the funeral. Never before had I felt so unwelcome, I put my hand out to shake my dad’s hand, he not only looked through me, it was almost like he just walked straight through me, as if I did not exist. The same with his brother Gary and sister Chris. It was like I was invisible. I remember clearly standing there shaking with rage and strong emotions, never before had I felt so unwelcome by the people I used to call family. My dad’s brother Paul, whom I had been strong friends with since I was about 18, as he was only 6 or 7 years older than me, came over to shake my hand and ask me if I was going back to the house for the wake. There was no way I could, not after the show that had been played out in front of me. At this point I did not have the strength in my legs to stand, the levels of emotion was so strong. I don’t think that day will ever be put to rest. For me this would see an end to what was a very close relationship with my father for the next 5 or 6 years. After my second son was born, the relationship with my father began to mend somewhat, until I had a falling out with his new partner, Janet, over an invite where my mother would also be attending, namely, my then second wedding. I asked Janet if she minded not attending so not to create any further friction at the ceremony. Looking back, I was very wrong to do so and it would be the end of my relationship with Janet.
In November 2019, my father sent me a photograph of Janet via direct message on Instagram. I did not know why he would send me that photograph, but I then understood it was his way of telling me she had passed away. We had been messaging since July 2017, but with no physical contact until late 2020.
I had lost 10 years with him in total, 10 years I would never get back. I really can’t put into words how much it hurts looking back at the time we missed together. How much he would have loved coming with me to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club on a night when Georgie Fame or Booker T played, he would have loved it. I can feel the emotions welling up inside me as I’m typing this. There was also the pain that the divorce and separation had caused to my mother. To see her hurt was heartbreaking.
It was just before the covid lockdown I regained contact with my father, it was my mother’s doing and her prompting me. She had been in touch with him I guess after she had found out his partner Janet had passed away. She always loved him and that would never stop until his passing. I remember clearly the phone call I made to him for the first time in years. How shaky we both felt over small talk on the phone. My mother had already told me he had something to tell me, he did not tell me anything on the phone other than small talk.
I can’t remember the timeline but it was not long before we got together and arranged a visit with my mother to our house in Blackheath. It was so strange but refreshing to see my mother and father arrive in the same car to our house after so many years being apart. It was the first time my (third and current) wife Erminia had met my father and she has not let me forget how well both her and my father got on and why we, me and my father, had both been so stubborn towards each other over the years. She had a very valid point and made me recall the whole saga of events that brought us to this point.
The thing my father wanted to tell me was that he had cancer and that there was nothing that could be done to cure it. It had crossed my mind that it could be something like along those lines.
It was time to make whatever time we had together count. I could see when I first saw my father after so many years he was not a well man. He had always been a strong man, a construction worker, now in his 73rd year he looked frail though. A shadow of his former self. I think I had prepared myself mentally for the news that he had to deliver, if only in half truths about his current condition and how long he had left, as it turned out, it would be only a year.
For me, this writing is to get the hurt out I still carry inside. The way some things in my life have played out, to look back at my emotions and how they shaped some of my decisions. As the song says, “regrets I’ve had a few”, if I’m honest, not many. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Life is about learning who we are and that never stops until the day we die.
A year is no time at all, and one will never get back the time one has lost. Stepping back and telling oneself that things need to be put right is important. It was not long before I could see even more of a change in him and how he was physically. At first I would visit most weekends and then it was after work during the week. He was getting weaker and weaker. I would spend my time buying 20 cigs for him and his medications from the chemist. Maybe some snacks that he would ask for, but not eat. It’s hard to watch someone just start to fade away into a shadow on a bed in a room. The drugs the doctor was prescribing got heavier to ease the pain that he must have been in, but he had still not lost his razor sharp sense of humour!
I remember, one evening, in the last weeks of his life myself and my son Max going over one night after work and the carer turning up to put him to bed, he was already in bed and dozing. She woke him up by turning the bedroom light on and talking to him like he was deaf. Max came downstairs where I was and said “Your dad just said next time they (the carer) turn up and I’m in bed asleep tell them to fuck off”. He was unwell but still the same as he had always been: sharp and to the point. We would take it in shifts: my mother would go over in the morning and afternoon and myself in the evenings after work and Maria, Janet’s daughter, would be there overnight.
It is still the question of love and devotion, how many women would stick by a man and spend time helping nurse him through his last days after he had left her for a life with someone else? Someone who had been a family friend for as long as I could remember. Not many, not many at all.
She loved him until the end, she really did, she still loves him today and always will. Everyday she would be there for him in the last months, weeks, days and hours of his life.
She would just spend hours talking to him even if he was not very responsive, making him comfortable, we all did, but that level of devotion after so much pain from the break up of their marriage is, still, to me, incredible. Most would have just walked away, but that is my opinion, of course.
My mother was still by his side after everything she had been through. She was still there loving him until the very end.
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