Each Time I Said No

I was born on January 28th, a Monday, in 1980. I had a Dad and a Mum who loved me. I lived with them and had a reasonably comfortable life. They did their best.

Then, in my teenage years, my Dad started drinking more excessively. It had an impact on me. When I met my now-wife, Ruth, I think I was looking for a reason to abandon ship.

While there was nothing wrong with my relationship with my mum, sister, or even my brother, I didn't really want anything to do with Dad. Too many mornings finding him face down in curry from the night before in the kitchen. With the smell of piss. Too often.

I have always struggled to go back on things. On decisions I make. It's just something that's become a coping mechanism that really doesn't work, even if I think it does.

From the moment I moved down with Ruth, I barely saw my Dad for the next 23 years, more or less. There was one time when he visited, along with my Mum and sister, in Leeds, to see his first grandson. Then there was a funeral where I spoke to him very briefly.

Then, before the 2020 COVID pandemic, he was diagnosed with dementia.

There were so many times I was asked if I wanted to go see him.

First, when he was still working as a street cleaner for Glasgow City Council. Then, when he was retired and being cared for by his sisters at his house. Then, when he moved to a nursing home.

Each time, I said no.

The first time felt necessary.

The second time felt consistent.

The third time felt easier.

After that, it just felt like who I was.

Each time felt like I was protecting myself from hurt and sadness.

I told myself distance was healthier.

That you can’t heal in the place you were hurt.

That going back would undo the progress I’d made.

Even when I realised we shared similar traits and battled addiction, even though I owe my eclectic music taste to what he surrounded me with when I was growing up, I still said no.

When he was diagnosed, that should have been the moment.

The moment to undo everything.

Instead, I treated it like all the others.

Another no.

I feel everything and nothing all at once. I'd happily do a lot of drugs or drink a lot if I could to stop feeling nothing and everything. I feel haunted by all those times Mum asked if I wanted to go see him. To go see Dad. But I had to stick to my guns, didn't I?

Had to be stubborn. Act like it didn't matter, but it did.

It's the same as with the Michael stuff. But with Michael, I accept that we'll never be close or a thing. With Dad, that has been made for me. That decision is concrete. No longer a choice.

I feel everything, and it feels magnified. I sometimes wonder if I am setting myself up for a dreadful time by worrying a lot about June 3rd, then I think to myself if I wasn't worried, and when I remember what that date means - forever.

I am reminded that any conversation about Dad is now framed in the past tense.

I then feel sad about Dad dying, and then wonder why, when we didn't have a relationship. And how others who miss their Dad were closer to their Dad. It's not a competition, and you can't compare and contrast.

Then I feel sad we didn't have that closeness. Then I think about our boys, my boys, and then I think about everyone who ever said to me, meaning well, that I should talk to him. Present tense. Because, at the time, he was still alive.

But my stubborn heart. My bitterness always stopped me.

Now I have memories. Only memories from over 20 years ago. My mind thinks back to all the things that have happened since, and how he was nothing much more than a shadow.

I have to live with my decision. I mostly just get by...

They felt like the best choices at the time. Hindsight is an insightful space, but it does little good.

I should have, or he should have reached out. He could have tried and tried harder. I could have tried.

Considering how hard I tried not to think about him over the last 25 years of my adult life, since he died on the 3rd of June, I've thought of him every day since. It started before, when deterioration was in full motion.

Every day I think about him.

Anytime I speak to my Mum.

Anytime I think about my Mum.

Anytime I think about my brother or sister, or talk to either.

When I think of my family.

When I listen to the music he liked.

When I think about the music he liked.

When I watch films or remember watching films with him.

When fathers, both good examples and bad examples, are mentioned in anything.

I think of him.

I tried so desperately to move on because facing him always felt harder. It never made anything easier. I didn't go to the funeral for the same reasons. The confused, conflicted, and painful reasons that are stitched together, holding the version of my Dad that lives in my head.

It would be wrong to say I don't regret going to the funeral. Just as wrong as it would be to say I don't regret ever trying to rebuild bridges and pull down walls I had erected.

But I can't change those.

I thought I was making things better. But made them worse.

I tried to protect myself from him.

Now I don’t get the chance to know who he was without the drinking.

Now my thoughts are consumed by the man, a complicated, flawed man whom I rejected because I felt it was the right way to protect me.

When, really, I'm sitting here Sunday morning, writing this because of those decisions.

I admit I made the wrong choices, but it doesn't feel like resolution.

I am not okay. If anyone wonders and I say I am okay, I'm not. We all know it.

I am not angry at people asking. I appreciate it.

But I am not even sure I know how to be okay with a Dad I pushed to the back of my thoughts, or tried to, only for him to inhabit them all. I am not okay with him being dead.

I do miss him.

I do regret my actions.

But missing and regretting won't change the fact that he is gone.

Nothing will.

I am not okay.

*

Thanks for reading

Author's Notes: It is fast approaching the first anniversary of my Dad's death. June 3rd to be precise. For anyone interested, this piece connects to the following pieces: