........................................................................................................... The Legacy
I always knew, when the phone call eventually came informing me my father had died, it would be a dull overcast day
with that fine drizzly rain that seems to penetrate your clothing chilling you to the bone. I always knew it, always did.
I was wrong, when the day finally arrived it was a glorious Sunday afternoon in July a number of years ago. It was my
sister who gave me the news over the phone.
We chatted for a while discussing the old man whom she was very close to and the apple of his eye. It pleased me
knowing they were close, for a number of reasons.
Walking over to the window after we said bye bye, I stared outside taking in the news and marvelling at the beauty of
the afternoon, amazed I'd got it so wrong.
My father wasn't a big man, but he had a dark aura about him, and I was afraid of him.
Dog owners will know their pets can sense negative auras emanating from people. Every dog we've owned and loved
in our 46 years of marriage would slink away from him whenever he and my mother visited. They would crawl away
almost on their bellies with their tails wrapped underneath them. He would always laugh, calling them silly b*ggers.
He genuinely did not have a clue why they acted in such a manner, it went right over his head, my mother's also, as she
laughed along with him.
He could be cruel if he wanted to.
He introduced real fear into my life at a very young age. I would have been about three or four years old and still
remember the clothes I was wearing, the little camel hair coat with brown velvet collar, once very popular.
He was visiting some old aunt and took me with him. I don't remember the journey there or back, what I do remember
is walking along the pavement very near to the aunt's home.
I was on the inside of the pavement running parallel with a long row of sandstone flats. Across the road to our left
was a local park enclosed with green painted metal fencing in front of a row of trees.
As I was chattering away to him I looked up at one point but he wasn't there, he'd simply disappeared. I was overcome
with a fear I've never forgotten. The memory of that fear has been with me all my life; thousands of tiny needles
pierced and cascaded down every pore of my skin from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. It was horrendous.
Turning round desperately trying to look for him I suddenly spotted movement at the entrance to one of the flats, it
was my father's head, he was peering at me.
Relieved to spot him but totally unable to understand why he would put me through such a dreadful experience,
I couldn't understand why he did it.
I've never experienced anything like that reaction to fear again, but it's left me with a hangover of emotions; a true
mixture of apprehension, nervousness, unease, fear without cause, the list goes on.
When I was about fourteen I was sitting upstairs on a tramcar with my father, I was sitting on the window side, as we
travelled over crossing points the tram swayed from side to side as they always did at points. When it swayed to the
right he leaned towards me pressing against my body staring directly into my eyes with a look on his face I'd never
seen before, I was petrified.
I started to ask myself, "is this man leaning against me truly my father or some other person who was sitting beside
me". He frightened the life out of me again.
One day my mother decided to recall an incident that happened a number of years earlier when I was six or seven.
My sister had a large brown wooden dolls house in the kitchen. One day my sister was lying over the roof of the house
putting something through one of the windows. Apparently I picked up a hammer, raised it above my head and was about
to bring down on her head, but she, my mother, grabbed it from my hands just in time.
The very thought I could do such a thing appalled me. I never spoke to anyone about it, but that story too, stayed with
me until one visit my sister and her partner paid about three years ago. I don't know how we got onto it, we were
discussing various subjects when I repeated the story about her doll's house and the hammer. She'd forgotten all
about the house and was surprised I'd remembered it. More importantly though, she remembered the incident but
assured me the story mother relayed was, in my sister's own words, "a load of rubbish".
What happened, she continued, was that a hammer was left lying on the kitchen table. All I'd done was pick up the
hammer, nothing else.
She was lost for words when I told her I'd always carried the awful thought of me raising that hammer above my head
with both hands ready to thump her on the head with the intention of killing her.
1985: My older brother phoned me, he was terribly upset regarding a letter he'd received from our parents and wanted to
read it to me. It was disgusting in its acidity.
After we discussed the content of the letter he said, "you know, the old b*gger still frightens me".
My big brother, the one I'd always looked up to, the stronger of the two of us, was afraid of father just I was.
I was so taken aback I could only think of saying "I know what you mean".
Replacing the telephone handset at the end of our conversation I was unaware I'd never speak to him again, he died of
a brain haemorrhage a week later.
Naturally my parents were devastated.
At the funeral I was not surprised to see my father draping himself over his son's coffin while crying his name.
Not only had they lost their eldest son, they could not now, ever, retract their words in that awful letter.
I never told them I knew about it, I've never mentioned it to my sister.
But like many folk of similar nature, they never, ever, learn.
Fifteen years later towards the anniversary of his death my sister-in-law, whom I'd always got on with, telephoned.
Clearly agitated she asked me to listen to a message my father had left on her answering machine.
The message was unfair, unjust, uncalled for and plain wrong.
A few years later she died having never spoken to my parents again.
My brother was a wealthy man who, along with his wife, made sure their estate was left to my sister and myself after
both of them were gone.
It's a long complicated story but, due to my parents reputation in his home town 600 miles away, my sister and myself
were tarred with the same brush resulting in some underhand plotting taking place by some friends and neighbours.
We quickly found out about it and having experienced legal battles before, which I found extremely draining, I began to
feel I'd no wish to become embroiled in an unseemly fight over a will. I mentioned this to my sister who was beginning
to be of the same mind. We let it run its course and heard no more about it.
All this, due to my parent's reputation.
My legacy is incomparable with some poor souls however, if you feel blessed with gratitude and thankfulness every
time you think of your legacy, then you truly are blessed indeed.
Think about it again, right now, and treasure it even more than you have been.
The legacy we are left with when our parents are gone can leave us in turmoil but, it can also be a wonderful thing,
and a joy to behold.
I truly hope yours is the latter.
willie
Yes I know what you mean Linda. Take no notice "Don't let the buggers get you down"
. Feeling better but still trying to shake off this silly tiredness many of us suffer from.
