WLTMA - Dad [Ronald Robins]

For those of you who don't know, my father died when I was 7 years old. He had a brain tumour and died while in hospital after a long illness, most of which was spent at home. He died on the first day that we (my brother and sisters) were due to visit him for the first time since he had gone to hospital. Being so young I don't think that I fully understood what had happened and was probably more upset that I didn't get to go on my "trip" to London after coming home from school.

My mum had to subsequently cope on her own with raising the four of us. Some of us made it easier than others for her, but each of us caused our own problems for her. But more on my mother another time, she deserves her own tribute.

I would like to meet my father again, theoretically, to find out what he was like. Being just 7 when we lost him I don't feel that I really knew him. I have very few clear memories of him and sometimes, most of the time actually, I feel that I don't have the right to call him dad. I have a real problem with saying that little word, father seems more appropriate for someone I really didn't know (or at least don't remember knowing).

I can actually list all the memories that I do have of him:

• I remember him taking me to the cinema to see Watership Down, which he slept through and I had to wake him when it had finished.
• I also recall him taking my brother and I, along with two neighbouring kids to see the Jungle Book on the wrong day and having the car (a Mini) catch fire on the way home just outside the petrol station. It wasn't too bad, but I was upset that I wasn't allowed to help push the car back home and had to stay sat in the back seat!
• I remember him forgetting to take my yellow socks off once when he bathed me, and that I hated the fact that he always poured water into my ears at bath time to clean them.
• It was my father who would always take me to the barber to have my hair cut. He wasn't happy one time when he hadn't taken me and I came home from the barbers with a "skinhead" haircut for the first time, though I think by this point he was ill.
• I sadly remember when, well into his illness, at the dinner table he had finished his meal and proceeded to lick his plate clean only to be scalded by my mother for doing so as if he were one of us children.
• Another time, when he, my mother and I were in the living room, someone came to the front door. My mother went to answer it, but I was too afraid to stay with my dad in the living room (scared of how strange he acted probably). I went and stood in the doorway and my father tried to get out of his seat, lost his balance and banged into the wall, denting it. I then had to help my mum get him back to his armchair (bearing in mind I was probably only 6 at this point and my mum was only 5' 5", with my dad over 6' and of a large build enhanced by his illness and lack of mobility).
• My last memory of seeing him alive was seeing him carried down the stairs of our home, strapped into a stretcher being taken to the ambulance which took him to the hospital where he died.

The tumour on his brain made him behave in a child-like manner, affected his speech, balance and his coordination. He effectively had become a fifth child for my mother to cope with alone. We had little help from his brothers, and none from my mother's brother. I really don't know how she coped (well actually I know now that she didn't, but again that is another story).

I apologise for the preamble there, but it is important to know some of this to explain why I want to talk to my dad again. At age 7, I was beginning to understand that I was "different," that there was something about me that I couldn't tell people. I knew that I liked boys and that it wasn't what was generally acceptable. At the same time I lost my dad and was told that it just wasn't done to talk about the dead. So, for years I felt that, on top of not being able to be open about my burgeoning sexuality (or the equivalent term at that early age), I wasn't allowed to talk about what had happened to my dad. No one ever talked about his illness, just very occasionally talking about things he had done when he had been well. It was years before I knew exactly what he had died from.

If I got to speak to him again, I would like to know if he liked me. It sounds silly, but it does leave me feeling empty sometimes that I do not know what sort of relationship I had with my dad. I don't doubt that he loved me, but did he actually like the person I was becoming? Could he have accepted me if he had known about my sexuality? Would I have gained better life skills if he had been around? Would I have been more sporty? Would I still have been as spoiled by my mother?

I want to know what life lessons he would have taught me. What stories he could have told me about his time in the merchant navy.

The saddest thing, not having a father for my memorable childhood years, is that I don't know what exactly I missed by him not being there. I do know that I lacked experience in dealing with adult men which I still find difficult to this day.

I do wonder how I would have turned out had he been around.