My Dad

Today I rang my mother and asked where my father’s ashes were. Is it strange to want to visit them after all this time? I wasn't sure what to feel or what I was going to feel. Nothing? He isn't there after all. It is just a plaque in the wall with a few ashes. Where he really is I don't know. P and I made the trip up. I sort of like to do this sort of thing on my own. What If I don't react in the normal way? What is normal? When other people’s friends and family pass away, I never know how to deal with it. Is it better to leave them in peace, to grieve in a personal way, or to express some kind of sympathy? It isn't that I'm not sympathetic, I simply don't want to say or do the wrong thing.

So today. The weather was perfect. The location was about an hour and a half drive north. An easy drive when you have all day. We left home at about 9:30am. Listened to music, chatted a little. When we arrived we asked at the office where to look. I had been to this cemetery for a friends fathers funeral. It felt funny that I had been so close to where my father was and not know. P found the plaque first. I didn’t know what to expect. From myself really, what was P expecting of me? P wanted to say something to my dad. He then left me in peace to work through things myself. Around his plaque, on the right is the empty space put aside for my mother. Will that ever be filled? It won’t be filled by my mother. The ages of the people around him were 82, 75, 75 and a still born child. Then there was dad, 32. I was 6 when he died. His age upset me a lot. I did know that already, but to see it written there, his name, the date he died and age. That’s all. No words of remembrance, love.

 I remember small things. The day he killed a snake when he was wheelbarrowing my sister and I home from the garden; the night he got angry with me for getting sand in everyone’s dinner; the day we found a fruit bat in the shed; the day we visited our future house and found a kingfisher’s nest in the bank of the creek. The day I caused him to injure himself very badly in the boat; The day he danced with me at a bush dance; The visit to the pier where my mother was asked to identify his body; The day of the funeral. Other things I remember about him. Are these my memories or things my mother told me. He liked to read, he liked to fish, he was very hard working, he had a quick temper, he was very old fashioned. As kids we played his old 45’s so he liked music. Small memories but they are enough. Much more than my younger siblings, I am very lucky.

I was upset by the visit. I cried quietly. For myself, for him, for what happened to our family afterward? I am not sure. I am not sure it matters.