Today i remember my father. From him i gained my love or words, love of knowledge, love of laughter, love of plants, love of music, love of photography, love of life, and love of love.
He played the guitar and drums when The Beatles were all the rage. Then the kids came along and he had to be a serious family man. He would sit with his guitar on rainy days, when he could neither garden nor get sporty, and sing. It's how i learned many songs. Despite his meagre salary that mostly went to the family, i think good musical casettes were the only things he splurged on himself. Oh and cigarettes, which eventually killed him. But he always said he would die on his own terms.
My father earned a labourer's salary. His dug out rocks from the ground to make way for agricultural experimentation. They eventually figured out he was good with the plants and had an even keener mind to run the experiments, so he became a research assistant. The trips to his workplace are some of my most cherished memories. I saw amazing plants inside that agricultural centre, not found outside its gates. And my father knew all their names. In there, he was always his calmest and spoke from his heart. The day i got too old to tag along to work with him into that magical portal was the day i lost the door into his real thoughts and feelings. I often longed to go back there. And now i know why.
He always had a crossword going. He would bring home the Australian Women's Weekly gained from female colleagues, so he could do the crossword pages. He read voraciously. My father would start a Jeffrey Archer book and stop only for meals, baths and to sing me to sleep. But as he grew older he was able to space out his reading. But not his crosswords, gaining access to books specially dedicated to the topic when i got old enough to venture into parts of the city he never went to, to find them for him.
My father made his own things when he couldn't find it in the stores. Sometimes he would buy something and personalise it if he wanted something custom made but couldn't make the first part himself. Like buying a t-shirt and modifying the sleeves because he couldn't weave his own fabric. He once combined two blankets to create a make-shift version of his own quilt. Sometimes he would buy something and use it as a prototype for 'better' versions he felt would serve the world more practically. Like the time he fashioned several desktop stationery holders and gave them to his favourite people.
I still have the Brazil nut he made into a jewellery box. He made three. I wonder if the other two recipients kept theirs. He always said those nuts would outlive him. The only nuts tougher than him he said. And i'm not talking about the edible part of the nut mind you. I am talking about the outer Brazil nut shell that can only be opened with a saw before you get to the individual inner shells. He transformed them into works of art. But not everyone appreciated his artist heart.
My father had a hard time in a society that expected 'normal' behaviour, which really just meant following accepted norms and staying within the defined status quo. Looking back now, i compare my father to Vincent Van Gogh. A rejected artist, unappreciated for who he could not but be. A tortured artist, forced to fit in to put food on the table and clothes on our backs. He never found the great love his heart longed for. And my father lived most of his life a broken man. Undervalued, unaffirmed and haunted by a deep jungle of complex emotions he could not conquer, he lived most of his days a lonely man.
2 years after his departure, i find myself rewriting much of his history. For it is mine too. My father's legacy has been to leave me not only all the things he cherished, but also all the things that went wrong in his life.. for me to walk into those very same rooms and banish the darkness that he left unconquered.
No more shadows of failure and despair. All of his fears, all that he lacked, all he judged and was judged for... it is all over. All that he loved, all that he had in abundance, all he embraced and accepted with joy... I carry them with me, and am passing them on to my children with great advances attached.
My father, in his struggle to remain noble and find happiness despite his pain, taught me to be authentic. My father, in his weakness and through mistakes, taught me to be true. My father, within his tortured heart recognised himself in me and although with equal parts of fear imbued, wanted for me what he never had and more. And because he wanted it so much, I now have it all.
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