Family
Officially this is my first post here because I’m an idiot who didn’t realise she had to cross post, my others will drift over, over time.
I start by talking about the most important thing in my life. Family. They define you don’t they? However much you fight it. They define your every neurosis and they make your early lives.
I begin this post with the negative part of my family, my father. He was useless, even more than I thought as I found out something that made me feel sick today. When I was at playschool he was meant to pick me up at 2 but he used to leave me there until 4.30 every day then run home to get me back before mum got home from work and pretend he’d been there since 2. While I can’t prove it, based on proved performance, I think used me as a cover for his affairs. My major memories involve drunkenness and none attendance. He ruined my ability to trust men.
I was always going to write this post as a dedication to my grandfather, who died suddenly last year. We were told he was sick and didn’t want to see anyone because he didn’t feel up to seeing anyone and exactly a week later we got another call to say he was dead. I have never felt pain like it. I was in the middle of my shift at work, held it together long enough to go to my boss and tell her what had happened, pack up, say goodnight to my co workers and go down to meet my mum at the car. No one even knew anything was wrong. Then I broke down, and I don’t think I stopped until the funeral was over.
There are a thousand reasons why he meant so much to me, but the main one is the choice he and my grandmother made. My parents split up when I was three, and four, and seven, and nine, before finally divorcing when I was ten, but that’s another story. My grandparents were my fathers parents, and they chose my mum and me. My fathers further decision to absent himself near enough completely from my life meant that my grandfather became my central male influence, and as my mum worked, he and my grandmother helped to raise me.
He was a blokey man, a member of the navy from the age of seventeen, used to attempt DIY (I say attempt because every time he tried he drew blood) and loved cricket and football, read sharpe’s novels and would willingly crawl around on the floor to play my little pony and dolls with me.
It’s been nearly a year since he died and writing this post still makes me cry. I miss and love him very much, and any man who wants me to love him really has to match up to his standards.
Tomorrow it’s my female relatives turn.
