.I began the search for the truth about my Father out of curiosity. But also a feeling of urgency, an idea that I ought to know before it was too late what he was like, who he was, what he did and why.
Looking back I suppose I knew all the time some of the answers to some of these question, but was afraid to fill in the blanks myself.
You see, guilt was Father’s weapon, and silence was his means of achieving that.
My Father died 12 years ago, suddenly, dramatically, shrouded in silence and secrecy. Mother told me for years that she didn’t really know what he’d died of. Lately she has admitted to me that there was a death certificate and that it was something like a stroke. He’d collapsed outside a store in the time between Christmas and New Year. Typical detail: he was buying eau de toilette for my Mother’s birthday, and of course he had waited until the sales were on.
A few years ago my Mother and I were talking about him and I mentioned to her that I grew up with the idea that we were poor, that both of them had to work all the time to just get by. My Mother was amazed at this. “We weren’t poor! Your Father was just stingy!” Later she added the nuance that he was not only stingy but was also capable of spending huge amounts of money on “rubbish”.
My brother and I have also spent the last few years growing closer. Hearing him talk about our family life sounds like he lived in another dimension. His interpretation, his experiences have almost nothing to do with mine.
His greatest revelation to me was during the last time I saw him when he suddenly proclaimed that he “hated Father”. I’d never heard him so emotional before; it was so obviously real and meant that it shocked me. We are talking about 12 years on here. 12 years to soften the emotion, 12 years to weaken the impact, and still it came out as raw emotion.
It became an obsession. My family, who were they? My parents, my grand parents, my great grand parents. However, each fact that I discovered opened yet another can of worms. My Mother gave me photos of her grand parents, but couldn’t tell me what their names were! I mean she doesn’t know what her Grandmother’s name was! Bizarre. Added to that, there is almost no evidence that my Grandfather even had a family.
I think I was hoping for a key to my life. But these people, my family didn’t even have a key to their own lives. How could my Mother have lived with a man for all those years and not known what he did in the evenings, St John Ambulance Brigade, Telephone Line for Families of Cancer Patients etc, she knew none of this. How much did both of them not know? How much did both of them not want to know?
We lived as a very nuclear family. Aunts and Uncles were tolerated, and later on, not. By the time I left for university there were almost no members of the extended family left. My Mother was an only child, her Mother’s family was large, and my Father’s family was large. So why did two of his brothers wait until his funeral to show up? Two men on our side of the church who I had never seen before. Two men who my Mother vaguely remembered but couldn’t quite place.
I’ve realised now that the reason I know so little about my family is not through lack of interest on my part.
My knowledge of our family is and was as restrictive as the world that my parents created for themselves. Small and controllable.
My Father’s insecurity translated as silent aggression.
My Mother’s 'by default' support of the status quo.
All this is conjecture of course. I have no way of knowing what they thought and think. Of the why and wherefore.
I think its time to bury the unknown and deal with my life as it is. I can’t and won’t carry the burden of their lives with me. Leave the secrets in the dusty trunk in the attic.
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