I have been a little quiet on the posting front these last couple of weeks. I have been struggling a tad in the run up to today.
Because today marks the 1 year anniversary of my father's death. So, I have to apologise in advance, this might not be one of my funnier posts.
I'm not even sure why I'm writing it. Maybe I've gone fucking bonkers?
Anyway... Truth be told, my dad had really left us some months before. In February, on my birthday, my Dad suffered a massive stroke.
The call came, as these calls tend to do, in the middle of the night. My mum was bereft and on her way to hospital with my Dad who was in critical condition.
After letting out the strangest noise from somewhere deep in my chest, I threw some clothes on and raced in the car to the hospital. My mum had not minced her words, He's in a bad way. They don't think he will make it she had said, dread colouring her voice.
I arrived at the hospital and made my way to the ward he was being held in.
I got lost.
The hospital was fucking giant and seemed to be built entirely out of long empty white corridors.
I stumbled upon a young Doctor, she helped me on my way to the right place.
I bounded into the room my Dad was in and stopped in amazement.
I thought my Mum had said he was in a bad way?
Yet there he was, upright in bed, a little dazed-looking but alert for all that. I pushed in beside my mum who was holding his left hand, the other I noticed was in some kind of sling thing.
Hey Dad, how are you? You gave us all a fright!
I said with relief.
He turned his pale blue eyes to me and mumbled something incoherent.
My Mum advised that he couldn't speak properly but the Doctors and Nurses were pleased with how quickly he had bounced back.
But he hadn't bounced back. He couldn't speak or swallow or walk.
In the weeks to come, we realised he didn't really know who we were. Well, he seemed to slightly recognise my Mum and my brother but not me.
I visited him daily and watched him deteriorate both physically and mentally.
Occasionally he managed to say a few coherent words.
The first thing I remember him saying that I could really understand was 5 weeks in.
Jus let me fuckin die.
He had growled angrily before lapsing into incoherence once again..
We had a meeting with a Consultant.
He had said that my Father was now profoundly disabled and had suffered a massive massive stroke and was now significantly brain-damaged.
He said we could continue as is and he would end up in a care home but his condition would continue to deteriorate and that really, it was no way to live. Just existing until he died.
The other option was to take out his feeding tube and let him go.
My mum broke then. The events of the preceding weeks crashed on top of her and the spark in her seemed to go out.
She couldn't believe the Doctor. She insisted that he still recognised her and that he was still alive in a way that mattered.
So we carried on.
And the consultant was right.
He deteriorated, day after day.
There were scares, he had to be resuscitated several times after aspirating on his own vomit because he couldn't swallow.
Over time, I prayed that he would let go. For his own good. I suggested to my Mum that we should let him go. I am not sure how the hospital squared that with our anti-euthanasia laws but they still offered the option to remove his feeding tube.
My mum refused.
Let me go.
He would occasionally mutter, fixing whoever was there with a baleful stare.
But even those coherent moments became rarer and rarer.
My mum couldn't let go of the man who was her soulmate and had been for over 55 years.
And then, one fateful day, precisely 1 year ago he finally just stopped breathing and died in his sleep.
The whole thing was grim. I didn't cope very well. Ironically, I still posted on Steemit daily. I threw myself into hiding in my writing.
It was a release for me to do something other than focus on what had happened. Here in Scotland we men are notorious for shutting off our feelings.
I used to laugh at that stereotype and now find myself playing it to the letter. Bloody Scotland.
Fast forward a year and I find myself going through the same turmoil but my funny bone seems to have deserted me. Hence the lack of posting.
Don't worry, I've not gone anywhere, this place is a part of me like a third penis.
Time heals and it is relatively true. I am sometimes still quite raw about it all but manage to chunter on. My father was a giant in my eyes. Most people's father's probably are.
When a loved one dies it feels that a part of yourself dies too and it all boils up again at times like anniversaries like this one.
The last month or so, I have struggled with the advent of Father's day in the UK and now his death anniversary.
But life does go on, things do get better. We have to look up, remember the good times and that is what I intend to do tonight.
My dad loved Rum. It was his favourite drink.
So tonight I drink to my Dad. I think he would have liked this one.
