Family

I don't have a Father and have not had one for most of my adult life so Fathers Day has tended to pass me by much of the time. The concept of family life has bemused me ever since. I did not have a particularly good relationship with my Dad, although it was probably not much different than any other teen-son/father relationship. His death was sudden and to be honest I have never really been able to mourn him as he seemed so alien to me and I was so young, mentally at least, when he died of heart failure in 1981. I think my older brother was more affected by it as his teenage years were more angsty and there were lots of unresolved issues between the two of them. I remember him punching the wall in frustration when he died and the tears he shed. At the time I wondered why I shed none?

I have a very large family - six brothers and sisters and because of age differences and a mother who has managed to alienate so many of us, we have all gone on to lead separate lives. I am the only one who has moved out of Gloucester and in retrospect it was the only possible thing to do.

Large families do not necessarily make happy families. My parent’s was not a particularly happy marriage from what I could gather and I was too young to remember my father before the stroke that debilitated him for nearly a year. Essentially I grew up with a younger sister and an older brother in the home – my elder siblings had fled the nest and already building families. Father would be at the pub every night without fail and as I entered my teens my mother began seeing other men behind his back. We were encouraged to cover for her so I spent many nights growing up, praying that our mother would be back before my father got home. If she wasn’t, there would be trouble. No violence, to my knowledge but arguments, screaming, tears and trouble.

I spent many years thinking I understood my mother’s behaviour after dad’s death. Her re-marriage into a loveless union in order to have a nice home for once in her life. My new father didn’t like me and the feeling was quite mutual, but I left mother alone understanding how she needed the security he offered. It never occurred to me the damage my mother was inflicting not only on me, but on my younger sister, who was forced to move out and spent the next ten years suffering various mental breakdowns and entering a string of abusive relationships. When the step-father died two years ago mother was at last free to live her own life in a nice house where her family would be welcome. I visited her then and found it very difficult to talk to her. We had not held a proper conversation, a mutual understanding, for over 25 years. What can one say after this much time? I love you? I miss you? It’s so good to be able to communicate with you again after all this time? It was too late.

Since then, it appears I have another step-father. I was never informed of my mother’s new marriage, was not invited to the wedding and to this day, have no idea of my mother’s name. I have decided to keep it that way.

By a sheer fluke, however Me Julie's father, Jim will be arriving on Sunday for lunch. It has been a fair few years since I have seen him and Julie only invited him assuming he would once again refuse. He didn't - and he arrives on Sunday along with Julie's sister Sarah and her two boys William & Taylor.

So rather than spending a leisurely Sunday in bed with Lloyd he will no longer be coming over and frankly I don't blame him in the slightest – families are weird. It will be nice to see Sarah and the boys again - I shall take the boys swimming as it appears they both remember the last time I took them – 7 years ago. Seeing Jim will be odd, a bit like having a grown-up over for dinner. Let it be a day for Fathers. Jim will get a little drunk I suspect. Vincent in Ireland should be being spoiled rotten. I am sure that some bear community somewhere will be celebrating with a Daddy special in XXL or the Kings Arms.

I shall think of my father too and say a little prayer for him and all Fathers who are fighting for a chance to be allowed the right to communicate with their kids. I have learned through experience that not all mothers are natural parents.