I Can't Fart In a Cathedral Without Thinking of My Dad

I'm going to preface this by saying he's dead, and we miss him, but I don't want him to be defined by that in your eyes. Except insofar as to tell you how much he was loved.

He was loved this much: I have missed him every day since he died fourteen years ago. Growing up, I missed him every time he went away from work - which was always. He was usually home at the weekends, and if I got to stay home as well, those were the best times. (There weren't enough of them, but I'd have said just the same even if there had been ten times as many.) Come to think of it, I have probably spent most of my life missing him, in one way or another.

He never got to be an old man, not really. Not old enough to die, that's for damn sure as mustard. I wasn't ready for it. None of us were. For perspective, I am sure I would have felt that way even if he was a hundred. But truly, he'd only just retired, after working hard all his life. How unfair that he had no opportunity to live out his golden years and watch his grandchildren grow.

Is there anything worse than cancer?

I sometimes wish he had written a memoir of his life, because he had such a life. I know I can't do it justice, but I can tell you some of it.

He was born in Germany towards the end of the second world war. His dad was a soldier who went missing, presumed dead. Loss. Then his mother died when he was six. More loss. He went to an orphanage with his his brothers and sisters (a cheery place, as you are probably imagining,) and then the boys were moved to England to be raised in a kind of commune. They wouldn't see their sisters again for many years, and they would not be allowed to speak German anymore (yikes, that is a whole other level of loss). They had to learn English fast, and only speak that. I think this was to help them integrate in England - Germany wasn't exactly popular at the time - but they squashed the language out of the kids a bit too thoroughly. I know it bothered him, later, that he couldn't speak his mother-tongue well.

He was made to leave the society as a young man, although by then he considered it his home and asked to stay. When he was still a young man, his younger brother was killed in a horrible accident involving a tractor.

He met my mother and married in 1960s. In case you are thinking that sounds too cheerful, let me assure you that his foster father died before the wedding. His foster mother lived many more years and I was lucky enough to meet her a few times. She was a lovely person.

The marriage lasted more than twenty years and they had several children. I know what you are thinking - hooray! At last. The chap was a due a break. Right? So anyway, then my mum left for another man in the 1980s, and they went to court over custody for the youngest child. Unsurprisingly, really, Dad was determined the siblings should not be separated. The judge agreed. We all stayed together, with Dad.

This was great news, of course, but Dad still had to work to support us all. Divorce tends not to be cheap either. He was hardly at home at all during the week. He would usually leave in the small hours and get back late in the evening two or three days later. Child care was split between older siblings, friends and neighbours.

He married again, probably far too quickly, really, but can you blame the man? Being a single parent is tough, and if you have lots of children and a job that constantly pulls you away from home, you are naturally going to be on the lookout for a helpmeet. He only had about twenty years of life left at that point, which seems criminal, but then, he was always saying that life is too short. We didn't know how right he was.

On paper, it sounds like he had quite a sad life, with loss at every turn... but he wasn't a sad person. Absolutely the opposite, actually. He was always cheerful. Always smiling, always whistling. Make the best of things, and enjoy what time you have because you never know what is around the corner - that was his way.

When I was very small, I remember being extremely impressed that he could do things like move furniture. To my mind, that made him practically superhuman. There might be two people negotiating the stairs with a cupboard or a sofa, but I only had eyes for one of them. As an adult, now I understand that this is the way little kids often see their fathers. They are literal heroes to us, if we are one of the lucky ones.

He could also eat anything, which also seemed like a superhuman trait to me. It didn't matter how spotted and mushy the bananas were, or even if they were black - he'd eat them with gusto. It didn't matter what the date on the yoghurt said, he'd shrug and say, "it'll be alright". It didn't matter how many vegetables were on his plate, how badly they were cooked, or how much flavour had been boiled out of them - he cleaned his plate. Literally. Sometimes he even licked the gravy. We called him a human dustbin. We were thoughtless kids, not taking much of a second to remember the times he'd been born into. I was eternally grateful, when I was told I couldn't leave the table until my plate was cleared, that he would help me out - no matter how disgusting the food was.

Lots of my memories of him are with a full beard and mustache, a bit like a 1970's Kris Kristofferson but with black (and then greying) hair. I was mildly traumatised when he shaved the beard off. It changed the look of his whole face. He had permanently tanned skin, and his right arm was darker than his left because he always wound the window right down and rested his elbow there when he was driving (and he drove a lot).

I don't remember him being angry very often. I remember him being kind. I remember him being silly a lot, especially around children. He liked word play, toilet humour (which I understood) and innuendos (which I didn't).

He always put his sugar on the cornflakes before the milk. He drank enormous mugs of tea (not coffee, he said it addled your brain) - strong with plenty of sugar. He dipped bread or biscuits in it. He liked Battenberg cake and Werthers' Originals. He enjoyed music, especially country music and Abba. He couldn't play an instrument, but he could sing.

He liked nature. We lived in the countryside, and growing up, I was luckier than I realised to practically have a forest in my back garden. We would walk the dog together at weekends, and he'd point out different flowers or birds. I don't think he considered himself very clever, but to me he seemed like a walking encyclopedia. I thought he was the wisest person in the world.

I'd find a feather, and where other adults would say, "Ugh, put that down, it's dirty!" he'd tell me what sort of bird it came from, and whether it was from a wing or a tail. He'd tell me where I could see that sort of bird, what they looked like in flight, and where they built their nests. Once he helped me climb a tree to peek at eggs, but he usually warned me not to disturb them. He bought me binoculars, and built a bird table for the garden.

He was generous to a fault. He'd give you his last if you needed it with hardly a thought for himself. He was loyal, also to a fault. If you were his, he'd stand by you no matter what.

He liked soap operas, western movies, polo mints, and slapstick comedy like Mr Bean and Carry On movies. He liked animals.

He spoiled us a bit - probably because of the whole mum leaving situation. If we asked for something, he rarely said no. When we visited his foster mother there was a litter of four kittens in the barn. I wanted one. Guess what happened.

He was a gregarious person. Whenever we went out anywhere, it seemed like we always bumped into someone he knew, and they always wanted to take the time to talk. It was dull for a child, because grown-ups always talk for such a long time about very, very boring things.

I remember once, his friend had their dog beside them in the car. I wanted to pet it, but I was told not to because she was protective. Dad liked that. I think he admired loyalty above other traits - in both people and animals. Maybe that was why he held himself to a high standard in that respect. I have a similar dog now. She's sleeping on my feet. I am thinking, like I often do, that he would have loved her, and she would have loved him right back. I can sit with this idea and tolerate the bittersweet pang of it for a little while. I can't think the same thought about my children. It's too much.

When I was very small, he was my absolutely favourite person in the whole world. I was a bit terrified that something would happen to him. Him dying was a recurring nightmare that I was palpably relieved to wake from as a child. I don't wake from it now.

Once I found out he couldn't swim well, I started having nightmares about him drowning. Every time we walked over a bridge, I'd hold his hand very tight. I think people probably thought I was doing it because I was clingy and nervous. For one thing, let's get this straight: I was. One parent had left, and the other was often taken away by work, meaning we were shipped around various friends and neighbours. It wasn't exactly the sort of circumstances that would foster confidence in a child. But I wasn't just frightened something would happen to me (although that was a real concern, stranger danger had been hammered into me since before I can remember) - I was worried something would happen to him. I was imagining him falling off the bridge and being swept away by the river. Adults can be spectacularly stupid when it comes to understanding children. Which is odd, considering every adult was, without exception, once a child themselves.

When I was a young adult, I sometimes felt frustrated with him. He'd find humour in anything, and sometimes I didn't find a thing funny. He'd always take the quiet option, always avoid conflict - and I didn't understand that. I do now. I wish I could tell him that.

I can't remember now how I found out he had cancer. How strange. Something horrible that I never thought I would forget, and my brain seems to have blocked it out. I can't remember who told me or what they said. I am pretty sure they used the word "inoperable", though, because that was the word that reverberated around my skull while I cried on my sofa.

He'd visited and sat on that sofa with me so many times. I had brought him tea how he liked it. While we chatted, he'd put the mug down on the seat, or on the arm, and I'd grit my teeth and move it, because the rest of the house might be a mess, but the sofa was new and I just wanted to have one nice thing.

I wasn't crying for my dad, and for his suffering and his loss. I was being hideously selfish, and I was crying for me. I was crying because my childhood's worst nightmare was coming true. Because I knew my time with him would be cut cruelly short. I cried because I would lose him twice over - first as he deteriorated from a hearty strong man to a skinny bald patient, and then lose him again, this time completely and irrevocably. I cried for all the times I'd been embarrassed by his silliness, or impatient with his preference for peace and quiet. I cried for all the times I'd been annoyed that he left his mug of tea on the sofa, and knowing I'd give almost anything for him to leave tea rings all over it for another decade, or two, or three.

We visited him while he was dying, and each time, the first words out of his mouth were for the wellbeing of someone else. How is your arm? How are your children? Is so and so doing well? He's always like that. It's his way. The visits got quieter, and he'd be asleep a lot. I sat by his bed, and there was always someone else there. I couldn't get up the courage to ask for a few minutes alone. I knew we didn't have long left, and I had so many words to say. I barely knew where to start, and when I found somewhere to start, I couldn't force them past my teeth. It didn't matter. Not really. By that point he was so hopped up on morphine, I don't even know if he would have heard me. Anyway, whatever I wanted to say, I am certain he already knew.

The funeral was weird. It was almost like a farewell to a semi-celebrity. As part of his immediate family, having to walk through crowds of weeping people in the car park was very strange. It wasn't brilliantly organised, and the same immediate family that were walked past everyone to the front of the queue, had to squeeze in wherever we could find a seat. It couldn't have been plainer that the man leading the service had never known or spoken to him, nor to any of us. I don't have any specific memories of it. Dad wouldn't have minded. I have never known a person with a more a pragmatic view about death. As far as he was concerned, that sort of thing didn't matter, because he wouldn't be here to know about it.

The following year, I went to a friend's birthday party. I hadn't seen him in a couple of years, and the first words he said after "hello" were, "How's your dad?" I answered without really thinking about it, "Actually, he's dead". The look on his face was priceless. I couldn't help laughing. Dad would have found that quite funny. He was a mischievous and irreverent person.

I am reminded of him all the time. I often catch myself saying things he would have said, or doing things the way he would have done them. I even talk about him like he's still here. On a long holiday, or a work trip, or something - not really properly "gone" at all.

I wonder occasionally about little details about his life. Sometimes I even reach for the phone to ask him before I remember I can't. What year did his brother die? Did he regret getting married? Was he naturally a left handed person? I remember him describing how kids were "cured" of left-handedness when he was growing up, but I can't remember if he experienced it directly.

Maybe most people think this, but surely he was all the things a dad should be. There has not been a day, I don't think, in the last fourteen years, that I haven't thought of him. In a way, it's like he never really left.