123: My Father 2 ... and Lessons

So, what lessons can be learned.

The good bits:

Objectively, I can say that I am closer to my son than he was with me. I asked my elder brother (by 7 years) whether he had been different with him, when he was younger – more cheerful, closer? I did not get a response.

In absolute terms I am probably seen as a worrier but in relative terms, I worry less I am sure.

I am less judgemental of people.

Have more personal friends.

Probably more content.

The bad bits:

No way near as successful as a professional.

Have not helped people anywhere near as much.

Not as clever or hard working.

And  then …

Comes my parents’ relationship. It can’t always have been bad and sometimes, as a youngster, if I came into their room unexpectedly, I can remember them springing away from a hug.

But the overwhelming memory is of my mother being hugely resentful – of marrying into a big joint family, of not having been able to work. This resentment came out in mocking his family and continuously harping on about what she might have been. And lots of ill temper almost all the time and a huge need for control.

He kept his head down for a peaceful life but am pretty confident that at critical junctures he ruled out options – for example, her not working – and so the hurt was both ways for sure.

I do not want to end up there. I do not want years of misery because it is easier to stay than to split. Following his death, my mother is now enjoying the freedom of a lessening of responsibility. If I live as long as 81, I do not want to wait.

I have a duty to my son and life is peaceful anyway. But if there is a lesson, in my parents’ marriage, and those of others, it is surely that the break is better. Perhaps not for all concerned but certainly for the one wanting to get away. I do not want to create an ideological position and it is not something I think about every moment and every day – but the time will come?

122: My Father 1

It is 27^th June today. My father’s birthday. He would have been 92. He died last December.

Sitting at my desk at work, a bit bored and needing distraction, I open up Facebook. My brother has a post there marking the day – I hadn’t remebered. Suddenly feel the need to write.

My father was a great man in so many senses. From looking after his extended family, to being the best engineer I ever knew and a very successful one, his capacity for hard work and duty to his family, loyalty to his bosses. He achieved much and left a lot of good memories for everyone.

Towards the end of his life, he suffered from dementia and it would be true to say that I was not very nice to him over perhaps the last two years before he died. I could argue that I was protecting the people around him – specifically my mum I suppose – as he turned into someone dragging everyone down with him. Equally, it could be that I seized the advantage of him not being very well to let my frustrations out, to get angry at him because I could, while convincing myself that the only way to deal with a ‘bully’ is by fighting back. Or that I do not have the patience to deal with uncomfortable situations. That conflict will always be with me, ever unresolved as I cannot be judge and jury to myself.

Were we close? Not particularly. He was much older (42 when I was born), somewhat distant, no interests in common. I went into heavy industry and engineering because of him as I admired that life but we hardly ever spoke about work. There were no hugs but he would be affectionate if I lay down on the sofa with my head on his lap.

I think there was a mutual respect. He recognised that I very rarely ‘asked’ for anything from him or my parents as a whole. One incident I remember, I schlepped across London with golf clubs as my mum said she needed their car and I could not borrow it – mine was with my wife. He got quite upset apparently because I never asked for anything but had done so once and been denied! (This is contrast to my brother and sister-in-law who had a much closer relationship with far greater give and take.)

Then, one year (2015 I think) he told me that I was the only one he could confide in – that he was being treated ‘like a servant’ in his own home. My mother was and is not an easy woman and their's was a harsh relationship from the outside – with mutual anger and recriminations that came out more and more over the years. I told him that I was in the same boat and that it was our lot in life to put one step in front of the other and carry on!!

But he never spoke to me about my admission at all. And while it may be unfair to say so given all that he did for others, it prompts me to think that there was a selfishness there – an ‘all about me.’ Behind a modest exterior was someone who was proud of what he had achieved – absolutely nothing wrong with that. Or was there? This was not a 'comfortable' pride - a man content. There always appeared to be a role to be played, it felt like. Being the most hospitable, kind, generous – and he was all of those things. And he was also successful and gave my brother and me fantastic starts in life. But he never appeared to be able to enjoy what he had done. It was always duty, the continuous feeling perhaps that he was being judged, there were always fears and negativity and hypochondria … and, in a sense, perhaps it all built up inside him to the extent that he was always the victim. There was this complete focus on work and confidence which did not extend to much of the rest of his life. Totally comfortable with going to Libya via Malta during American sanctions or fly in single prop. engines in the Liberia but huge fears about a simple cataract operation or a minor back-ache.

What is the magic bullet that explains him? This mix of greatness and smallness? I remember we were in Moscow once and there was a problem with plane tickets. I expected this experienced business traveller to take command, and yet he did not – he actively moved away from it by handing the tickets over to someone else. He went down in my estimation a little then though I was in my teens. He told me about how he left an organisation and told his subordinates to decide amongst themselves as to who would take over. I saw a letter to his eye consultant suggesting a cataract operation on one eye but then rowing back and writing that he wasn’t at all suggesting a particular avenue of action.

He was clearly very, very good at what he did – particularly in the first half of his career – but always seemed to be afraid. My mother relates the story of his boss saying that he ‘suffers from so many inhibitions, always inhibitions.’ In which case he was lucky with his managers who recognised the talent and supported his work.

So, in the end, he was a complex person just as we all are and it is far easier to spot weaknesses in others than in ourselves.

He was what he was and the positives – certainly for me as his son – outweigh the negatives. What are the lessons to be learned? …..next post.