Today is Dadiversary, Its the anniversary of the day we lost him.
My brother, sister and I all treat the day very different.
My sister will have got up early, visited his grave, has posted on Facebook in his memory and he will not be far from her thoughts all day.
My brother doesn’t talk about it much… but then hes a boy and boys don’t. I’m pretty sure at some point in the day he will realise the dates significance, he will spend a few moments thinking of my dad, wish some things could have been different and be thankful to him, then when its Gin o’clock he will raise a glass to him.
My dadiversarys usually go one of 2 ways. Some I get very angry and bitter, and some I just completely blank out as I cant bear the lump in my throat that the memory of this day gives me.
Dad had an aortic rupture on the first night of his holiday to France. 3 days later he had made an amazing recovery and was sitting up in bed talking and the Drs were even discussing getting him back to the UK.
Before they could authorise his return they wanted to carry out an angiogram.
It was scheduled for the Monday morning.
To this day, due to the language barrier of the french Dr’s terminology and our poor french, we are still not 100% sure of what went wrong, but he never regained consciousness.
For the next 4 days the Dr’s fought hard to bring him back to us. Before leaving the hospital each night,my sister, who had traveled over to france, was told to be ready for the life support to be switched off the next morning.
Each morning when she arrived they had another operation to try in an attempt to save him.
They pumped litre upon litre of blood into his body to keep it alive.
But by the Friday morning they had given up hope of bringing him back. The machines were turned off and we had to accept we would never get our dad back.
I often think of all the things I wanted to tell my dad, but I never got the opportunity, and that hurts.
He was like Marmite my dad, he wasn’t the easiest of people to get on with and as a result people either loved him or hated him.
After mum moved out of the family home I stayed with him for the next 4 years, just the 2 of us and it wasn’t easy. We were always too similar to each other and as a result I, as a grumpy teenager, fought a lot with him. But we also had our fun.
If I could talk to him one last time I would tell him how grateful I am for all he taught me.
Id tell him that I now understand why he would be hard on me and it has made me the strong person I am today.
Id tell him I was sorry that I couldn’t travel to France to be with him, but then I know he understood that I was fighting to keep my business going and to keep a roof over my children’s head.
And even when he came into my shop, flirted with my staff and teased me that my flowers weren’t as good as he could do them, I knew he was proud.
Id thank him for teaching me no matter how hard life is to never give up, and that I am just as good at DIY as any man!
Id thank him for teaching me that in life you have to work hard to get what you want, but it doesn’t always go quite the way you planned.
Id thank him for showing me how wonderful nature can be, and that even with all the bad in the world, beauty can be found if you just take the time to look.
Id thank him for showing me that when you do kind deeds, you don’t have to have praise and acknowledgement to know that you have been a good person.
And Id tell him that even though we very rarely said it to one another I loved him then as I love him now and I always have and always will.
I don’t need a special date to think of him, or a hole in the ground to visit to remember him.
I think of my dad every single day. Each bird or butterfly that flies past and I cant remember the name, I know dad would if he were here to tell me.
Each bottle of wine I uncork I wonder if he’d tut at me drinking crap or if he’d approve of the vintage.
Each time my kids do something silly I wish he was here to phone to laugh with about it, and when I scold my kids I hear my fathers voice within me.
And each time I look in the mirror and see my double chin, I know its from his side of the gene pool….Thanks dad xx
I miss you!
