On Sunday I woke up and Hubby was crying.
He'd spent most of the night on the phone to his siblings in England. The hardest thing about being back in Sydney is that he can't connect with his siblings like he did when he was there.
And it wasn't just about his Dad dying. Or maybe it is. You see, it took for his Dad to die for all four siblings to finally meet and to finally all get to know each other.
The two eldest children were from a first marriage and Hubby and his older sister were from a second marriage.
Neither marriage lasted long and none of the four children got to know their father until they were older. Hubby met his Dad when he was 15.
Thing is, his Dad was a good guy who had terrible taste in women and who was clueless about creating a sensible, lasting relationship with a good, down-to-earth woman. He had an everlasting series of wives and girlfriends - all were headstrong, moody and firey - and also self-centred and vain. He was always optimistic about relationships at the start but was the type to dive in too quick - he really needed all the bells and whistles and fireworks associated with falling in lust but, as with all relationships like that, they fizzed out pretty quickly. However, he didn't take any nonsense and could back out just as fast, prefering to cut ties rather than fix things.
So all four kids grew up without a father.
But they realised what a great guy he was once they got to know him and all four children independantly ended up much closer to him than to their mothers. He wasn't a typical Dad at all. He was the most unpredictable, exciting person to be around - and even though he frustrated everyone at times, he was also very genuine.
Even if he had backed away from raising his children, once his three grandchildren came along, he loved it!
In the few months of his life, he finally broke off ties with the last of his evil girlfriends, he sold his flashy speedboat and bought a sensible family boat so he could go away with the grandkids. He kept in touch with his children heaps more, sending photos of each other to all the others and telling them all they they'd really like each other if they ever met.
So even though Hubby had never met his older brother, we'd seen numerous photos of him with his daughters, going out on the boat, having lots of family time.
We'd also been sent a DVD of Hubby's Dad with his youngest grandchild (she's the one in the photo) and he really seemed to enjoy just being with her.
The sad thing was that Hubby and I hadn't had kids yet, but we made sure that we brought home items from the house that we could use to tell our future children about their grandfather - a stuffed toy, some beautiful artworks, a set of Beatrix Potter books - because he would be so pleased now to see that all four of his children finally got together.
And they got along really, really well. And it shouldn't have taken for him to die for them all to finally meet each other.
Hubby is happy that he finally feels he has proper family in England - two sisters and a sister-in-law, a brother and a brother-in-law, and three gorgeous nieces. Having them around, and having the children around, made things so much easier. And also really lovely. You can't be too sad when there's kids about, especially if there's a cute widdle baby there.
Yesterday, we created an album for each of the four siblings containing pictures of all the things we did together as one family while we were in England for the three weeks.
On the back page, there's a picture of Hubby's father's beautiful garden on the river.
The title of the book is "Family" and the book is inscripted: "Thanks Dad".
8 comments:
It's always tragic when a funeral is the only thing that brings people together. But as they said in an episode of Six Feet Under:
"Why do people have to die?"
"To make life important."
I think that's true in many ways.
Condolences to you, Hubby and your newly-extended family. *hugs*
that's a lovely, beautifully-written and touching tribute, jez - what you wrote, and album you mentioned, made me tear up. my thoughts and prayers go out to you both. hugs.
Thanks for this beautiful post, Jezzy.
Truly from the heart. It's a sad commentary but the words of an old rock song, of which I can't remember the title, go something like "don't it always go,...you don't know what you got til it's gone" (Title just came to me "Take paradise and put up a parking lot".
But the sunshine is that it stopped there, you, hubby, and all the siblings can move life forward from here,...together.
ohhh, that is so touching and lovely.
Beautiful sentiments and writing, Jezzy! Thank you for reminding us to appreciate our loved ones!
My ma in-law discovered her lost siblings and mum in 2005, and they finally made it out here last month. They are also from the UK... so I relate to this as a first-hand observer :).
This post left me a big sad, but hopeful at the same time. I hope that's the sentiment underpinning it Jezzy. :)
I meant "bit"... not "big"!
Post a Comment