Dad - love of love x

“My Dad is the best Dad in the world!! – It’s something many of us think when we’re little, from when we learn to use our chubby, unstable, little legs to walk to when we’re sharing a fag with them in the garden at a family BBQ, trying to escape everyone else. Or maybe this is just Bridget Jones and I’s experience? Nevertheless, the more time that goes on believe this statement has changed for myself. Now I truly believe my Dad is one of the worlds best people.

As I grew up I realised this pretty quickly as my friend’s feckless fathers, bought them the latest gadgets and buggered off with their new second families. This led to many of my friends practically living at my house, using my folks as secondary parents. However, they soon rushed home when Dad came back from work. After all he is a big believer in blunt honesty and when he has enough he would say: “I’m not being funny but go home!” or “Don’t you remember you lot don’t live here!”

My Dad is not your usual “Dad” stereotype. Sure, every boy I knew in my teens was terrified of him, and my cousins thought he looked like a mafia boss thanks to his gold signet rings covering his huge hairy and dented knuckles. Even my friends were a little terrified, when they heard his big booming voice coming from the school car park. He’s the sort of man you hear first and see after, sadly I am the same.

He’s what some would call, a big character. Intimidating in both size and demeanor, but to me he’s the man who sings “Good morning fluffie wuffie woo” songs to the dogs when he feeds them in the morning. He’s the man who loves watching romantic comedies with me and cries at everything sad – don’t ask us how we got through Toy Story 3, we still can't talk about it. He’s the man who spent an entire stag do (not his) chatting to the stripper about how my mum uses special lotions to get rid of her cellulite and then calling my mum to get the brand for her!

Anyway, the story of how Dad became a Dad is a very interesting story, if I do say so myself. During his early teens he had some medical problems and was told that he would never be able to have children of his own. He never did tell me how this made him feel at the time, however less than a handful of years later he had more immediate problems to worry about.

At the age of 14 his Mother walked out. Turned out she was having an affair for almost a decade. For years she had been having late night tennis lessons, waving goodbye to her two sons while simultaneously turning the heating off on her way out. She wasn’t home, so why spend the money right?

Not that I’m bitter. Dad is a lot kinder about this than I am.

My Dad told me this story when I was around 4. It was the first time I ever saw him cry at something that wasn’t on TV and it’s something I will never forget. One day he got home from school, walked in to find the note on the table, telling him that she was gone and she would reach out soon.

No seriously, that was it. He was shocked and cried and cried as their Alsatian Tara kept licking the fresh tears of his face. When my Grandfather came home to see the family home stripped of my grandmothers’ belongings, he was devastated, as you’d expect. However, I never really got a straight answer as to how my grandfather handled it. Apparently, he knew all along about the affair but loved her anyway and didn’t want to confront it.

In fact, a few months later, my grandmother called and my Dad answered. She told him that she was living with another man and that he and his brother should come and visit. She gave him the address and later Dad had to break the news to his father. Now no one knows how they’ll react until this sort of situation arises, but I promise you, no one was expecting what happened next.

My grandfather calmly nodded and walked away. When they were ready to seek out their estranged mother, my grandfather gave his eldest son a bunch of blooming and beautiful flowers. He told him to give them to his mother tell her “I forgive you.”

Shocked my father tentatively took the flowers from his hands. Then my grandfather made both his sons promise to forgive their mum for their own sakes, as she is their mother after all. I think he truly believed that was what was best for them.

But the real clincher for me was that they didn’t have the address down correctly and so these two boys, were going to door to door with a bunch of flowers asking people, “Excuse me have you seen our mum?” Breaks my heart to tell you the truth.

In recent years my grandfather has been wrestling with dementia. Which has brought a lot of light to what happened during my Dad formative years. Dad had always stated that his father had been a strong capable man who worked hard to do everything he could for his sons. My Uncle recently revealed that this was something of a fantasy that my Dad holds true.

According to Dads’ little brother, it was Dad who suddenly sprung into the action of parent. He learnt to cook for his father and brother, he eagerly did the housework when he came home from school and acted as a replacement wife and parent. Knowing my Dad like I do; this makes the most sense. And knowing my uncle like I do; I know why my dad is such a neat freak.

Forward wind three or four years and my father and his family were in a bit more of a normal dynamic. That is until a group of women moved into a house down the street from them and yep you guessed it, one of them was my mother.

My Grandfather strode down the street and welcomed them to the neighborhood, offering a helping hand if they ever needed any manly jobs doing. I can imagine my mother scoffing at this, but I digress.

Despite mum’s hypothetical scoffing, the time came when mum and her friends had a real crisis and needed the help of a brave man. One of mum’s friends had a rather extensive collection of stuffed animals that gathered dust and of course a gigantic spider. The girls tumbled out of their front door squealing and ran to my Dad’s house. Now I should mention that my father is now sadly without the flowy brown curls that he was admiring in the mirror when my mother shouted up to the open window “Hey! Is Bob in?”

“No, why is everything alright?” Dad called down - Mum swears he never looked away from that mirror.

“Ummm, not really! Are you scared of spiders?” She asked.

That got his attention. “YES!” he screamed and slammed the window shut. He did eventually have a look around the house with the girls but sadly they did not find the spider until some weeks later in the middle of a house party.

To this day my folks have the agreement, Dad kills them, and mum cleans up their dead remains. My job however is to run out of the room/moving car at full speed.

Mum married Dad, knowing full well he couldn’t have children. She had been brought up in such a strict and incredibly poor Irish catholic household that when her father found her studying, he asked her what the point was? She was only going to grow up and get married and have babies. I truly believe that was the moment she decided she didn’t want kids. Purely out of stubbornness.

In fact, mums’ family never really liked my Dad. He wasn’t a catholic, he came from a broken household, and he had ambitions in business – they believed money was the root of all evil. Dad has always joked he was like a bomb going off in mums’ family. In fact, when Dad asked mums father for his permission, my grandfather asked, “will the children be raised catholic?” Dad shrugged and said “Sure!” A decision he bitterly regretted later in life, after being stuck in church for hours every weekend.

Mums’ family are quiet polite and quiet frankly a boring puritan like bunch. However, Dad has always tried to do right by them. They never understood how someone can have morals when they don’t believe they are doing it to get into heaven. However, my father has, in my opinion more morals than any of them put together, as he believes in doing good simply to brighten someone’s day and not so he can get a better gig in the afterlife. It's a trait I'm proud so have learnt from him. Let me tell you some of the things my dad has done, off the cuff simply because he is a good person.

Its 1am in the morning and I can hear footsteps on our gravel driveway. I spring out of bed and see a drunk man unable to hold himself up, moaning and groaning. Now I should mention I listen to A LOT of true crime, so I’m having a fully fledged freak out, whisper shouting to my boyfriend to take a look.

Then my mum creaks open the door and asks, “Did you hear that?” I nod where I am crouched on the floor so the man can’t see me through the faded old windows.

“What’s going on?” Dad grumbles from the hallway. He stumbles in and waves the curtain back, and without a word, thumps down the stairs and opens the front door.

“You alright mate?!” He bellowed into the dark street.

We all silently watch from upstairs as my partner runs downstairs in case Dad needs back up. Mum and I remained huddled at the window, unable to hear anything from the man. Then, all too quickly, Mum and I glance at each other in alarm as we watch Dad inviting this strange drunk man into our home and we dash to the landing to listen in on their conversation

So, it turned out that this poor man was going into diabetic shock. His girlfriend and he had recently had a baby and he must have forgotten to eat his banana before setting off to stock shelves on the late shift at Tesco. Not only did my Dad give this man as many bananas as he could carry, he also insisted on driving this man home. The man was so grateful, that a few days later he and his wife showed up on our door while the biggest casserole I’ve ever seen to say thank you.

Another example a year or so later, Dad was mowing the front lawn on a beautiful summers day when someone walking by asked him for directions to the church for a wedding. This man was so lost that he was 2 miles away from the church and was going to miss the ceremony! Dad said

“Mate, you’ll never make that! No worries, hold on!” He dashed inside the house and grabbed his keys.

“Get in!” He shouted! It’s hard not to imagine him diving across the bonnet action man style however he’s a slightly overweight middle-aged man so it’s all the more shocking he even ran to get the keys.

And even a few days ago he received a phone call from a scared and confused old man looking for his son. Dad worked hard to get this man’s details and address from his confused state and told him to hold on and he’d call them back. He immediately called the police asking them to do a wellness check, which they did and called him back to say thank you and that the gentleman and his son were reunited and everything's fine. Dad was so worried about it, he was pacing the kitchen until he got that call back.

My mum always proudly tells these stories to her family, and they still always ask the question. “But why is he doing it?” My Dad always shrugs it off, but I know it really bothers him. However, mum always stood by him.

And that’s how its been since all those years ago, when my Dad went out on a dog walk and bumped into an old friend. 25 years ago they began talking about the new advancements in IVF that was in the papers. It stuck in dads mind and he approached Mum on the subject. Mum discovered that at the time it had a 16% success rate and said “sure, why not” and I, ladies and gentlemen are living proof that my mother, although not often, can occasionally be wrong.

After many treatments at the hospital my folks would eat lunch at Bella Italia, dreaming up their future and hoping that everything worked. Spoiler alert, it did!

Dad is a gusher and always is telling people what’s going on in my life. From when he reminisces over the way as a baby I would to chug a bottle of milk like a baby goat and pass out in his arms to when he’s ranting about how I came home after a night out and came into his room to tell him I got home safe and he woke up terrified screaming like a banshee thinking I was a burglar. Oh that was so funny!

It got to a point where my Dads colleagues knew an uncomfortable amount about my life! One time at one of Dads work events I spoke to one of the female sales team who told me a story. Apparently, her and a few other women were having a bit of a gossip about how the men in the office were such laid back, basically part time Dads and a male member of the team piped up and said “hey that’s not fair!”

“Really, how much did your son weigh when he was born?”

“Who the hell knows that?!

“Richard will, watch. Hey Richard, how much did Bella weigh when she was born?

“9 pounds 4 ounces why?” Dad said without missing a beat. And the office laughed – that’s my Dad.

Also yes, you may have deduced that I was named after the restaurant they ate in in between doctors’ appointments.

I actually have met up with my Dad a few times after a work parties and ended up joining his. In fact, one time after a leaving do with some of my colleagues I called him to make sure we both got the last train home as he was also as a big work event. This is how that went:

“Hey Dad, where are you?”

“No you’ll never find me… I’m in this weird pub thing that I’ve never been in bef.. yeah, Alan another Heineken thanks!”

“Jesus, okay, one sec, I’ll find you on find my friends” I look at my phone only to find his location in the pub that is almost directly in front of my office. Typical.

I then hear this whistle that he uses to call the dogs back – sort of the family scout signal- and I look up to see him frantically waving with a glass of rose ready for me. We laugh and joke with his colleagues for a while before I drag him on a bus and get him to the train on time. Oh but I forgot to mention a very important part. He is singing Noel from the top of his lungs in waterloo station.

This is the man my friend’s thought was so serious he was scary, and I’m dragging him onto a train while he sings Christmas songs in June.

I guess this is what happens when your older, your parents, if they’re as cool as mine, become your friends. My Dad is an incredibly eclectic character with so much love to give and is very much the definition of don’t judge a book by it’s cover. You may see a big bouncer looking man and I see my Dad whose laughter I have always shared and dyslexia I totally inherited. One year I gave him a framed picture for Father’s Day that said “happy fathers dad, love of love, Bella” instead of being mad he laughed so hard and now we sign all our cards “love of love”.

So thanks for being the best dad in the world dad and being the role model every little girl should have.

Love of love

Bella x