My Inheritance

Before he died, my father insisted that he wanted me to have two old fog watches that his father had passed to him. My reaction was visibly lukewarm, but I accepted them and promised that I would make sure to pass them down the generations. As long as Lisa doesn’t eBay them first. I’m joking See? I used a smiley-face!

But wait, judgemental reader, this wasn’t because I was holding out for a high value item such as a house or a car. No, it was because no physical item would ever replace him.

I wasn’t visiting the hospital so regularly hoping to nudge myself into a more favourable spot in his will. No siree, and I think he knew that Lisa and I are fairly non-materialistic folks. Funnily enough, the one thing I would have loved to receive would have been some kind of letter from beyond the grave. Yes, you can almost taste the diet of Hollywood schmaltz – did Bette Midler get a letter at the end of Beaches?

This probably says a lot about me, my deep-in-the-closet need for parental approval. It undoubtedly became a part of the vast tapestry of grief that followed, but I’d have liked to know that he thought I’d done a good job growing up. Somewhere along the line. Even if not a letter, perhaps a croaked, emotional deathbed scene where between hacking coughs he’d say “You did alright, kid.” Thankfully he didn’t, not least of all because that dialogue would have been really shitty.

No, I quickly realised after the funeral that a new era of adulthood was dawning. “The Age Of The Mother”, they’ll call it when it’s recorded for the history books. Because behind him, the dear old fella left a dependent wife. He also left a crazy-ass daughter (in the Psycho sense of crazy-ass), whose pastimes include stealing from her family, eating crisps by the box and keeping a long-held pact (with herself) to lie each and every time she opens her mouth. I am ashamed to come from the same uterus as her.

Also part of this package deal are my other sister and her husband and their ever-growing brood. I sometimes think Chib let himself die because there was literally no room left for him in the house. There are houses of refugees that are less crowded than my parents’ house. Which makes it kind of hard to visit.

But I don’t hold that against them – at least they’re company for my mother. It just makes it hard to visit – there’s literally nowhere to sit down anymore. I had to sit on the stairs during my last visit because the house was packed.

Anyway, “The Mother”. Let’s be honest, I was always closer to my father. We did things together, I helped him do odd jobs in people’s houses to earn extra money, and we could talk crap and argue with each other for hours. In my early life, I recall my mother as being constantly critical, extremely harsh. Any time I criticise myself in my head, I hear my mother’s voice. In her later years, she became very dependent on my father, partly due to illness but also partly because she wanted to abdicate responsibility for much of the household stuff. He came out of work to support her and care for her, and she slipped into the hybrid of dotty old grandma / venomous bitch we know and love today. For the most part, dottiness reigns, but sometimes – if someone’s crossed her – the Granny Hyde side of her personality comes out. And that one’s hard work, let me tell you.

Since Chib died, she’s become a regular phoner (it was always Chib who called, once a week on a Sunday night). Sometimes I get a call in the morning and one at night.

Oh, I don’t mind I suppose. The thing is, when I look at them I see expectation. Some kind of role I’m supposed to fill now that I’m the eldest male in the tribe. And yet all I want to do is withdraw. Somewhere I’m still licking my wounds and being around them is a reminder of the loss. You know? The one thing that keeps drawing me back is in a duty to him. I guess he’d want me to make sure The Mother was alright. But that’s going to be hard to do, as I’ll explain later.

Oh, it would have been easier if he’d left me that melodramatic note, gushing with praise and encouragement from beyond. I’d have felt much clearer about what I’m supposed to do now.

Quality Father-Son Time

Just got time for a quick post this evening before the exhaustion takes me and I slump lifelessly across my keyboard.

I came home from work at the normal time this afternoon. Ray was heading out to dance class and Lisa was offering to take Jake and Dan over to a friend’s house to give me some alone time.

Well, on the way home I’d actually decided to spend some time with Jake this afternoon. The offer of alone time was tempting, but I decided to take him to the park while Ray was at her class, then the whole family would meet up afterward.

Jake’s obviously not used to one-on-one attention. As soon as we’d dropped Ray at her class, he raced out of the center looking for our car (which wasn’t there!) He seemed genuinely disapponted until I said “Let’s go to the park”

So, we spent an hour in the park together, and he chattered away to me while taking death-defying bounds about the place. I coached him in how to climb that big rope “web”, and after a while he started to negotiate it on his own. A little girl came along and kept us company, and he seemed to enjoy having a friend to play with.

I’m finding these one-on-one experiences really help me to ‘tap’ into Jake and see how his personality’s developing. Little chats at the kitchen table, usually interspersed with some “Dad, do you know somesing….” anecdotes show you how and what he’s thinking. We’re noticing recently that he’s seeking out negative attention from us whether it means misbehaving or crying, and the only way to deal with that is to ignore (or downplay) the negative and give him more positive encouragement.

For me, I find it easier to do that outside of the house. It breaks the routine and comes across as a bit of a treat, so hopefully he’ll end up looking forward to out quality time together.