Life and Ernie My Dad
Without Prejudice
I am finding that the more I write now about the past the more I can make sense of the patterns in my life and what works and what doesn't. The added bonus is that it all helps to lay the past to rest.
I can write out things that have lain dormant for years and although it is incredibly hard to write I feel better and better as time goes on. Sometimes I have to use props like photos or mementos that evoke the feel of the time, sometimes it's a fragrance or a song.
I had to write the past so that I could feel the future enter in and remember just how far we have come as a family.
We stuck by each other through thick and thin and all of us now have become incredibly strong and hopefully wise and non judgemental of others. We used to call others, :The Toe Stubbers. People that were upset of what we saw as trivial.
We in our own lofty snobby ways were unforgiving of people that had no idea of "Life", bullies, creeps, perverts were treated with disdain and punished or ignored. We who had lost so much looking down from our mountain of grief at lesser mortals and sneering.
We found our strength was in sticking together and sucking it up, not retaliating, ignoring most of it and realising after a while we had to just keep going and putting one foot in front of the other.
We've all been diagnosed with depression at times and have chosen to take the medications or not. We all know how the others are feeling and try to help each other through the struggling days when all we want to do is hide from the world.
I heard a conversation that I wasn't meant to hear last Christmas when we asked my ex husband to help Kyle his grandson when Kyle was in trouble. Apropos of nothing he said Yvette, Kyle's Mother was "Useless" and by the way, "That Janette was "useless" too. Kyle was a loser. He always has labels for people and he alone remains perfect in his eyes.
It doesn't even anger me anymore his insults and lies. If it makes him feel better so be it. It is what it is and we prefer to have nothing to do with him or his ugly words and depressed bitter face. he used to be such a good looking man when he was younger and has turned instead to an ugly old man. Life giving you the face you deserve after 40.
Not one of his children see him, not one of his precious grandchildren see him or even like him which is more telling. They all have their own horror stories of staying with him and the facts as they are will never alter. he doesn't want them to and neither do I.
There is too much emotion from the past to ever allow that to happen. The girls finding at last that he was a controller and not a very nice person and that I left for all of them to deal with individually and come to terms with.
Saying to them,
"After 30 you realise your parents are just other people in the world "
and that you may or may not like them. I found in writing that I had a Mother I had resented for her mental illness, thinking somehow she could help her behaviour and she couldn't. I wrote about my Mum and realised how intelligent and caring she really was in her limited way.
And I could lay the memories to rest, same with my ex husband, same with my Dad, same with Jamie and Lauren. The writing onto the page being a conduit to peace for me as each word trickled out of my chaotic brain and laid bare on the page, sometimes in bleeding and awful truth.
But I had to write it all out, my pain, terror and angst. My Mother's suicide, Jamies death, Laurens, my Dad's death.
I had a great time with my Dad in the May before he died in the September 1996. I had flown to Darwin, knowing he was terminally ill. I asked him before if I should come then, not wanting to say the words,
"Before you die"
And he met me at the airport in the middle of the night which is the way it works in Darwin for some odd reason. He leaped out of the wheelchair and walked towards me, determined to do it and I tried not to cry at his keenness to see me and his bravery.
He was starting to be in some pain then, kept at bay with morphine that the palliative care nurses would administer. It bound up his bowels like cement he said and they had meds for that too.
He looked OK, but then my Dad would. Refusing to bow down to death and take it on the chin like a Man. He said to me he had had a good life and burst in to tears when Joyce, his beloved first daughter rang from the UK, my half sister. His sobs were heart felt more at the leaving of the light than his own pain.
I can't believe he opted out of treatment, I thought he could have extended his life by 10 years but he was tired and wanted to go, although he said he would beat it and I have no idea how he thought he was going to do that unless on faith and good positive thinking alone.
He would sleep a lot in the cool bedroom and all the dogs in the house would gather with him, sleeping on the bed or the floor just to be near him. It was touching.
He played for us, his 24 string Hawaiian guitar, standing up on shaky pins and letting the music wash over him once more. He was OK.
I think Ian taped him playing and we were glad for the music and that it remained his passion, Ian's friend "Bad" was there and showed us this new thing called the internet. He connected it all up and via the internet and we were connected to the world.
I typed in the words prostate cancer and 11,000 articles came up and I was terrified of its power this new thing. Imagining for some reason it would in years to come. be able to spy into peoples lives if they ever attached a camera to it.
I went outside for a while in the breathless hot air, away from that "thing", the internet and was frightened out of my wits for some reason. I kept my dark thoughts to myself as Bad and Ian were so rapt in it.
We all ended up outside and started having a few "Cougars", which I had bought a big bottle of. Ian coming with me and persuading me to buy the big bottle so I could enter the competition for a Cougar Fridge.
We sat back and sipped our bourbons and Ian passed around a joint and even Dad had some saying,
" I'm dying and I'm pissed and stoned. who would have believed it ?"
And we were all merry at first and hysterically laughing at Dad's fashion choices over the years.
The pale blue safari suit and the the tan one, his cuban heel boots and how he had stapled up his brown corduroys at Ian and Carols wedding, on the outside. Then Dad came outside and heard us cackling away and was hurt.
I followed him back inside and said,
"Dad, it's only a bit of fun"
but he was inconsolable and I left him to sleep it off. He had asked me several times if I was happy. And I lied and said yes because it was so important to him that I was.
"That's all that matters", he had said, "That you are happy"
He told me I had always been his favourite and Carol his wife reiterated it to me. He was always talking about me and my achievements, my return to study and winning the English Prize for the year at VCE level. He also told me to write but at that time I was not listening.
We couldn't go out much as dad was in a wheel chair but one night Ian and Carol took me to the night markets at the beach and we relaxed from the tight shouldered sea of grief and illness. I saw the sun setting on the beach and a silver staircase of shimmering light, climbing it's way to the heavens and the setting sun and imagined my Dad's last journey would be to ascend it.
And I loved him so and could not imagine my life without him in it. And I lay with him on the bed and talked of many things, My Mum, his funeral, what music he wanted played. I thought it would be "Take these chains from my heart", a favourite by Ray Charles. But he wanted " You were always on my Mind, " By Elvis. And I knew he was thinking of Nat, my Mother, His great love.
I cried when I left him on the tarmac of the airport, standing on his quivering legs of pain and I knew I would not see him again. the phone call came at work, Ian, and the words I didn't want to hear. That Dad had "gone". I hung up the phone and crossed to the fax machine and sent the fax to the client I was working with at that time.
I then went into my boss, Cedric Bywater, a huge Anglo Indian man who took one look at my face and said.
"Go Home".
I went to Alena's instead as she had said to come when I rang her to tell her the sad news. She and Mara were there and had made plates of snacks and I cried at their thought and care and cried for him. the most important male in my life. The man who had shaped me, given me life and unconditionally loved me even when I railed at him for not being perfect.
I went to pick up the phone so many times after that to speak to him and realising he was no longer there. No more Daddy to run to when hurt. he was a wise man my Dad. He brought me up most of the time as Mum was not always there.
I idolised him, his music, his passion, his fastidiousness that I have inherited and his positive attitude to life. He was so convinced he was going to live he tried to book himself out of the hospital 2 days before he died. Just the thought of him toddling down to the front desk as ill as he was, was enough to make me laugh in frustration and cry in grief.
He heard before he died that Debbie and baby, Ashleigh weren't doing too good. So he rang and left a message for me on the answering machine,
"Love to Debbie and love to the baby"
and when a girl that had a Dad that loved me as much as my Father did I was left with an enormous hole in my heart for years.
That unconditional love a parent feels for a child gone forever. And I missed it. I left Nifty Nev shortly after that, his Father died suddenly that year from a clot to the lung, aged 55, and Nev shed not a tear and had no desire to go home to Ireland for the funeral.
Then Debbie was so ill with Baby Ashleigh in the Royal Children's hospital breathing through a machine and then Dad died and I left Nev and went and lived elsewhere. His drinking out of control since his Father died and he couldn't have cared less.
He came to see me after that and cried at losing me, he cried the day I said I was leaving him too. but I knew they were crocodile tears and refused to be influenced by them. His love then was alcohol and that came before anything. I'm not complaining but if you are in a relationship with an alcoholic the you might as well be there by yourself.
They call it "The back walking away", as that is all you see, the rush to escape to the pub or the park or bottle shop, you might as well be invisible. He loved me with a passion in a young mans way and tried so many times to get sober but the alcohol would win in the end.
It was a shame as he was a funny intelligent warm human being when he was sober and an absolute monster when he was drunk which was often and draining. So I let him go in the end with a kiss and a half unbelieving spirit. He was fine, he didn't die as I expected but has gone on to marry a year ago.
Hi Mother in Ireland telling me when I realised I hadn't heard from him for a year or so. I was worried about that fact, but he's fine. I know the lady he married, or he told me of her as he raced me around the kitchen one last time a year or more ago.
I had just laughed at him as I am madly in love with someone else and he didn't have a high hope in hell of me being attracted to him any more. His girl rang there as he, inebriated, tried to paw me, for old times sake. the phone stopped his headlong dash.
I was able to get him out the door with a wave and a smile, put his number on call reject and forgot all about him. Then Alena, my daughter, started asking about him as she was very fond of him. So in the end to quieten her and my own mind chatter, dreading something happening to him. I rang His Ma, Chris, In Dublin,
"Oh did you not hear, Janette, he's married, a year ago"
And I was delighted as that is what he said he would never do and he did, bless him and I hope she has children. As that is also what he said he would never have. And I thought he should. I told his Ma to not tell him I had called.
"Not, tell him " she queried.
"Yes, I don't want to hear from him, I just wanted to know he was OK"
She was puzzled but I know Nev as a lover and she knew him as a son and there was a vast difference. She is a lovely lady his Mum, quite devout in her Catholicism and has called on all the Saints to help her son and oldest child.
None of it ever worked nor did stints in rehab and psychiatric or mountains of pills. He told me in the end he was an alcoholic, which is rare, and I am glad he did. We then could go on with our lives without each other.
So we did and remained good friends and then came the last time, as there is always a last time. And now I think we always were friends and should have left it at that. But we tried to form a relationship around our initial attraction and it was not to be. He's better in smaller and smaller doses and finally no dose at all.
On self reflection I think I was so "fucked" up then I just wanted to be with some one more "fucked" up than I was. And then I could feel superior and care taking when I should have been taking care of myself.
But like his old girlfriend who he left for me, who rang me up one day when I was well over him and said he had been ringing her for sex. said.
"I don't want him in my life but if he was in jail or something I would probably help him out"
I felt exactly the same, a sort of tired and angry desperation, a funny helplessness at his helplessness. But we decided to go our separate ways, I confronted him with the ex girlfriends call and that he had been asking her for sex as we by then were sleeping in separate rooms.
he told the truth and siad yes he had rung her up for sex as he wasn't getting any and tried to make me feel guilty but I didn't as he was a nightmare to sleep with. He smelt of this funny odour when he was reaaky badly drunk, almost making your eyes water, an acid like smell like cut onion or ammonia.
And he had restless legs syndrome and snored and called out, so he went and slept in the back room off the family room, and I could no longer hear him. He was agitated about the house, needing restoring and refused to help or see my passiom at making something old into something beautiful.
The last time I went to the house we had shared he was in the back room, cold and wet and shivering. he had soiled himself and there was urine and broken glass all over the floor. he had forgotten his keys and broke a window with a brick to get in.
I left him there and walked out across the hall floor my socks covered in urine and freezing and stripped them off at the door and ran to my car and turned on the heat, shaking with cold and anger and auger and drove miles to Narre Warren and collapsed into a warm bed.
I was glad it was over and I was glad that I saw the son the Mother never saw lying helpless in a bed, covered in his own excreta and urine and blubbering about his unhappy life. I had tried Al Anon and taken him to AA, and I knew I had done everything I could to help him and in the end he didn't need it.
So when I told my Dad I was happy I was with Nev and I knew I wasn't. With an alcoholic the scariest thing is not knowing what is going to greet you as he comes in the door. This is after he might not have come home for 3 days, a new job thrown over or discarded always with a valid reason. Bull shit in other words.
Once again I was being shown a lesson, caring for some one who needed "MY Help", and I stupidly thinking I could cure him, just like my ex husband. It's called Martyr syndrome and as caring people women seem to suffer from it more so than men.
I thought after, who was I to try and save 2 men who didn't want to be cured nor helped? My first husband being violent and angry and Nev being an alcoholic. Was I the one "Fucked Up" or were they ? My brother in law saying to me once that my ex husbands new marriage seemed to have lasted and I thought.
"you ignorant man".
Mine had lasted too for 20 years but my brother in law only saw the charismatic, the funny, the charming. I alone and the girls saw the black face screaming at us in fury and backhanding Yvette into the bath when she was pregnant with Kyle, calling her "slut".
Only we saw the foam gathering on the sides of his lips before a blow would fall, from a 15 stone man. We had no hope to fight him back physically and in the end when he left we tried to not go near him anymore. He was charged with common assault when he beat Yvette, the tiniest, once more, she with a baby in her arms, that he dragged out of the way.
He was with two others, his 17 year old girlfriend (She told him she was 29 ) and a male friend armed with a shifter in his back pocket. And he attacked Yvette putting her in hospital and she had him arrested. or the other people in the house at the time did.
Grabbing Kyle and running to the Police Station with him under one of their arms and blurting out the story to the police and all 3 were arrested and bailed and had to sign in every week for a year.
My ex alone charged, Yvette was hospitalised and when I went to see her she cried like a little girl
"He's my Dad,", she said.
"He wouldn't stop hitting me Mum, he's my Dad" and she just sobbed.
He was charged with assault and if he assaults again he goes to jail and that stopped his gallop at long last. he feared jail having been in reform school once and hating it.
he had been violent to his workers, me, he took a swing at my Lawyer in the family court and was branded
"Little less than a thug" and i had been married to him all that time and according to my solicitor that made me worse than him.
You live in hope, that it will stop, violence, but like someone drinking to excess it won;t unless a lesson is learned. I refused to go out with anyone for ages after Nev, realising that I was attracted to men I thought I could "help".
men like my Mum, a bit crazy and dramatic, just like she was. But always I remembered my Dad's words,
"Are you happy, love?"
And I wasn't, not at all and I decided in honour to my Dad I would stay away from the dark side of men and live single and happy until the feeling of wanting to "help" had gone away. So I buried myself in work and stayed single. I eventually met a very nice man, a kind man. a sweet man.
But it did not strike the right balance with me, I had to fancy them as well and I didn't. So I eased him out of my picture and the next thing within a month I fell head over heels with a man I am still in love with.
He remains my ideal picture of a man and will always be so, filling my heart, brain and being with delight every time I see him and that is as it should be, being "What it is". love and I am now lucky enough to know the difference.
Miracles really do happen, sometimes God throws down a light of shimmering goldness and we are dazzled by it, lighting the way in a sometimes darkened life. The light relieving shadow and sadness and guiding you to the right places, the lightness of being, the rich and sweet moments that light up a life, "the blossoms that light up for the blind" as Rolf Jacobsen writes in his poem "Guardian Angel"
Or the fabulous feeling that comes over you late on a Tuesday afternoon and just makes you ridiculously happy. What makes me happy about him ?. His glow, his freshness, his buoyancy, his love of me when he looks at me and I feel wanting and wanton.
I want to grab him right there and lead him by the hand to the fun and comfort I offer, which is exactly what I did when he first approached me as lover. Having known him already 3 months and resisting his attempts on his " turf" to be something more.That was just ego on his part and something I had a feeling he had done before.
And in the end he came to my "turf" and was shaking, showing me his hands shaking. This happens a lot with my men, I had one who took me to the pictures once and shook all the way through the movie. I wondered if I am that terrifying and they say I am.
I have never been ashamed of my body and see sex as the "Best", seeing it as natural and lovely and have an incredibly high sex drive just like all of my family I found out. Something we all inherited from my Dad. But these days I keep it contained so I don't make wrong choices. And I haven't had that many many at all, Bob for 20 years and I was a virgin when I met him and stayed that way for a long time.
We didn't quite make it till we married, and then I was with Nev for 10 years and he filled my heart and mind so much I never even glanced at another man. I made up for being a teenage bride when I divorced and was highly promiscuous for about a year after I divorced.
It was like being let out of jail and I went to the "far Side" for a while, dating about 6 males all at once
and I couldn't have cared less about their feelings only my own. I would break dates with some for better offers from others. And continued like that, laughing at them up my sleeve, so devoted and so young and then I was caught out badly and stopped seeing all of them and stayed single for a few years.
Concentrating on Kyle and Yvette for a change and having skin to skin contact with my little boy every day, by hugging him and kissing him was enough for me to leave males alone for a while. I needed to heal from years of control and violence and I must admit Nev helped most with that.
He was always loving and affectionate and having been starved of it for years lapped it up like a cat with the cream. Nev healed me from my ex and that's why he remained my friend for so long and will always be so in my heart. I couldn't have gone on longer than I did with him It reached it's natural Zenith all by its self.
He cooked and cleaned and helped out more than any man I had met and he was there every night with welcoming arms and a kiss and I had never had that happen before. At first I found it a bit much and had to adjust and apart from his drinking and his meanness at not turning on the heat his only one fault was not putting the seat down on the toilet.
Now I live cheek by jowl to five growing males I realise that is so common. As is not hearing anything you say, mumbling, being lazy and sweetly adorable at the same time. And the
"In a Minute" conversations you have when you ask them to do something.
It's never right now, but always "In a minute" and I have to walk away and let them take their time as at first I just want to throttle them if they don't do it "Right Now". I am exacting and because of my former job as boss have to shut up and realise I am not talking to employees but real live kids.
I figured it's good training for me when I end up sharing with another male, I won't have become insular by living only by myself. because I think you get like that if you don't have kids running around, driving you nuts but delighting you at the same time.
Last night I had a little man at my unit door dressed as Bumblebee from Transformers and his cow had a hole in it. he wanted me to fix it for him and he conveyed this with not too many words as we are worried about him not speaking much at 3.
But then he liked the green light hanging from the roof and then pointed to the green cotton reel in my sewing basket.
"Same", he said, his pink dummy forming a plug in his mouth that he had to speak around. He is a lot calmer with dummy in mouth at the moment but he bites most of them to bits, but he seems to be finally "getting it" that biting on it brings "No dummy" and that is a situation he wants to avoid at all costs.
He's clever, this one and is in day care 2 days a week now as he is soon bored with his own company and needs constant stimulation. Yvette was not happy when I first suggested it, him going to family day care one day a week.
But she thought about it, screamed and ranted at me for a bit and then did it anyway. She always does this. She did it with the first carer we had after she left Simon saying no F***ing Indian Bitch was minding her F***ing kids and months later when she finally got to meet Raylene Roy thought she was the bast thing since sliced bread and continues to do so.
At that time Yvette was so ill she had the Cat team coming very day to see her and treat her. She was put on some heavy medication that caused "Witches milk" to appear in her breasts and she porked out just a little, but she freaked anyway and had to come off the medication.
She was given counselling and time and eventually she came good, staying with me about 6 months before getting her first house. Then a bigger one where she lives now, a new brick house in Cranbourne, 4 bedrooms and 2 toilets and a huge backyard where I have a unit. my "Shoebox", that is big for one person, lounge, kitchen bathroom, bedroom.
I had to cull everything when I came here, turfing two lounge suites and dining table given to Yvette. I sold everything on Ebay even the revolting old brown couch. All of it went and stripped back to basics I re decorated to my taste. The unit being mine till that day I die and is transportable to any other piece of land in Victoria and not counted as Roof Space on land as it is demountable.
So we can have another put here. This time by Kids Under Cover and we are waiting for that, a 2 bedroom unit with no kitchen for 2 of the teen boys. No kitchen because of OH&S issues, but I would be no good to them anyway. Unless it's for washing up the dishes they will cart in from Yvette's house.
When I left my violent hubby once and went and stayed with my Dad he said,
"You're not ready to leave him"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you are fretting about a fridge and beds and a washing machine"
"So, I need those things"
"No you don't, everything in life you will get again"
I looked at him puzzled,
he explained carefully and patiently,
"When you are really ready you will walk out from that C***, (My Dad never swore) with the clothes on your back and everything you had before will come again, you will be given a fridge and a couch and beds and you will have happy children"
And in the end he was right, I did leave with nothing except myself and my children and we got back everything we didn't have.
Now we have 4 dwellings between us, 2 cars to every household and own every thing we have. it may not be much but it's "ours" and can't be taken away by anyone. Yvette and I share a block of land and the care of the garden and kids and animals. And that is all we need for now. Love you my wonderful Dad, he also said as he grew older that older men should run the country. That older men grew wise and cared for the larger good.
It was a message he seemed determined to pass on to me, he married his long time girlfriend when he knew he was dying, she had been with him for 15 years and made him happy and she was 33 years younger than him. That was Dad outrageous and living it up large until the day he died.
I remain in awe of his love and devotion to his wife and children. he stayed with my Mum, Nat till the very end, the last day of her life even though she was mad by then. And he remained devoted to all his children, all of us and Joyce and John his "love child", unknown to us until just recently.
My Dad remains the biggest influence in my life mainly apart from the normal things because he passed on to me his buoyancy, his wisdom, his gentle ways, and his innate kindness. He had been raised by a brutal Father and vowed to never ever hit his won kids and he never did.
He made us laugh at his awful jokes but the main legacy he left us all was his love of music. We are all addicted to the tunes, hushing people when a particularly haunting or poignant song comes on, as we have to "appreciate" the music. and when we do, we hear Dad.
And I won the Cougar Fridge and gave it to the "Darwinites"
Love Janette
I am finding that the more I write now about the past the more I can make sense of the patterns in my life and what works and what doesn't. The added bonus is that it all helps to lay the past to rest.
I can write out things that have lain dormant for years and although it is incredibly hard to write I feel better and better as time goes on. Sometimes I have to use props like photos or mementos that evoke the feel of the time, sometimes it's a fragrance or a song.
I had to write the past so that I could feel the future enter in and remember just how far we have come as a family.
We stuck by each other through thick and thin and all of us now have become incredibly strong and hopefully wise and non judgemental of others. We used to call others, :The Toe Stubbers. People that were upset of what we saw as trivial.
We in our own lofty snobby ways were unforgiving of people that had no idea of "Life", bullies, creeps, perverts were treated with disdain and punished or ignored. We who had lost so much looking down from our mountain of grief at lesser mortals and sneering.
We found our strength was in sticking together and sucking it up, not retaliating, ignoring most of it and realising after a while we had to just keep going and putting one foot in front of the other.
We've all been diagnosed with depression at times and have chosen to take the medications or not. We all know how the others are feeling and try to help each other through the struggling days when all we want to do is hide from the world.
I heard a conversation that I wasn't meant to hear last Christmas when we asked my ex husband to help Kyle his grandson when Kyle was in trouble. Apropos of nothing he said Yvette, Kyle's Mother was "Useless" and by the way, "That Janette was "useless" too. Kyle was a loser. He always has labels for people and he alone remains perfect in his eyes.
It doesn't even anger me anymore his insults and lies. If it makes him feel better so be it. It is what it is and we prefer to have nothing to do with him or his ugly words and depressed bitter face. he used to be such a good looking man when he was younger and has turned instead to an ugly old man. Life giving you the face you deserve after 40.
Not one of his children see him, not one of his precious grandchildren see him or even like him which is more telling. They all have their own horror stories of staying with him and the facts as they are will never alter. he doesn't want them to and neither do I.
There is too much emotion from the past to ever allow that to happen. The girls finding at last that he was a controller and not a very nice person and that I left for all of them to deal with individually and come to terms with.
Saying to them,
"After 30 you realise your parents are just other people in the world "
and that you may or may not like them. I found in writing that I had a Mother I had resented for her mental illness, thinking somehow she could help her behaviour and she couldn't. I wrote about my Mum and realised how intelligent and caring she really was in her limited way.
And I could lay the memories to rest, same with my ex husband, same with my Dad, same with Jamie and Lauren. The writing onto the page being a conduit to peace for me as each word trickled out of my chaotic brain and laid bare on the page, sometimes in bleeding and awful truth.
But I had to write it all out, my pain, terror and angst. My Mother's suicide, Jamies death, Laurens, my Dad's death.
I had a great time with my Dad in the May before he died in the September 1996. I had flown to Darwin, knowing he was terminally ill. I asked him before if I should come then, not wanting to say the words,
"Before you die"
And he met me at the airport in the middle of the night which is the way it works in Darwin for some odd reason. He leaped out of the wheelchair and walked towards me, determined to do it and I tried not to cry at his keenness to see me and his bravery.
He was starting to be in some pain then, kept at bay with morphine that the palliative care nurses would administer. It bound up his bowels like cement he said and they had meds for that too.
He looked OK, but then my Dad would. Refusing to bow down to death and take it on the chin like a Man. He said to me he had had a good life and burst in to tears when Joyce, his beloved first daughter rang from the UK, my half sister. His sobs were heart felt more at the leaving of the light than his own pain.
I can't believe he opted out of treatment, I thought he could have extended his life by 10 years but he was tired and wanted to go, although he said he would beat it and I have no idea how he thought he was going to do that unless on faith and good positive thinking alone.
He would sleep a lot in the cool bedroom and all the dogs in the house would gather with him, sleeping on the bed or the floor just to be near him. It was touching.
He played for us, his 24 string Hawaiian guitar, standing up on shaky pins and letting the music wash over him once more. He was OK.
I think Ian taped him playing and we were glad for the music and that it remained his passion, Ian's friend "Bad" was there and showed us this new thing called the internet. He connected it all up and via the internet and we were connected to the world.
I typed in the words prostate cancer and 11,000 articles came up and I was terrified of its power this new thing. Imagining for some reason it would in years to come. be able to spy into peoples lives if they ever attached a camera to it.
I went outside for a while in the breathless hot air, away from that "thing", the internet and was frightened out of my wits for some reason. I kept my dark thoughts to myself as Bad and Ian were so rapt in it.
We all ended up outside and started having a few "Cougars", which I had bought a big bottle of. Ian coming with me and persuading me to buy the big bottle so I could enter the competition for a Cougar Fridge.
We sat back and sipped our bourbons and Ian passed around a joint and even Dad had some saying,
" I'm dying and I'm pissed and stoned. who would have believed it ?"
And we were all merry at first and hysterically laughing at Dad's fashion choices over the years.
The pale blue safari suit and the the tan one, his cuban heel boots and how he had stapled up his brown corduroys at Ian and Carols wedding, on the outside. Then Dad came outside and heard us cackling away and was hurt.
I followed him back inside and said,
"Dad, it's only a bit of fun"
but he was inconsolable and I left him to sleep it off. He had asked me several times if I was happy. And I lied and said yes because it was so important to him that I was.
"That's all that matters", he had said, "That you are happy"
He told me I had always been his favourite and Carol his wife reiterated it to me. He was always talking about me and my achievements, my return to study and winning the English Prize for the year at VCE level. He also told me to write but at that time I was not listening.
We couldn't go out much as dad was in a wheel chair but one night Ian and Carol took me to the night markets at the beach and we relaxed from the tight shouldered sea of grief and illness. I saw the sun setting on the beach and a silver staircase of shimmering light, climbing it's way to the heavens and the setting sun and imagined my Dad's last journey would be to ascend it.
And I loved him so and could not imagine my life without him in it. And I lay with him on the bed and talked of many things, My Mum, his funeral, what music he wanted played. I thought it would be "Take these chains from my heart", a favourite by Ray Charles. But he wanted " You were always on my Mind, " By Elvis. And I knew he was thinking of Nat, my Mother, His great love.
I cried when I left him on the tarmac of the airport, standing on his quivering legs of pain and I knew I would not see him again. the phone call came at work, Ian, and the words I didn't want to hear. That Dad had "gone". I hung up the phone and crossed to the fax machine and sent the fax to the client I was working with at that time.
I then went into my boss, Cedric Bywater, a huge Anglo Indian man who took one look at my face and said.
"Go Home".
I went to Alena's instead as she had said to come when I rang her to tell her the sad news. She and Mara were there and had made plates of snacks and I cried at their thought and care and cried for him. the most important male in my life. The man who had shaped me, given me life and unconditionally loved me even when I railed at him for not being perfect.
I went to pick up the phone so many times after that to speak to him and realising he was no longer there. No more Daddy to run to when hurt. he was a wise man my Dad. He brought me up most of the time as Mum was not always there.
I idolised him, his music, his passion, his fastidiousness that I have inherited and his positive attitude to life. He was so convinced he was going to live he tried to book himself out of the hospital 2 days before he died. Just the thought of him toddling down to the front desk as ill as he was, was enough to make me laugh in frustration and cry in grief.
He heard before he died that Debbie and baby, Ashleigh weren't doing too good. So he rang and left a message for me on the answering machine,
"Love to Debbie and love to the baby"
and when a girl that had a Dad that loved me as much as my Father did I was left with an enormous hole in my heart for years.
That unconditional love a parent feels for a child gone forever. And I missed it. I left Nifty Nev shortly after that, his Father died suddenly that year from a clot to the lung, aged 55, and Nev shed not a tear and had no desire to go home to Ireland for the funeral.
Then Debbie was so ill with Baby Ashleigh in the Royal Children's hospital breathing through a machine and then Dad died and I left Nev and went and lived elsewhere. His drinking out of control since his Father died and he couldn't have cared less.
He came to see me after that and cried at losing me, he cried the day I said I was leaving him too. but I knew they were crocodile tears and refused to be influenced by them. His love then was alcohol and that came before anything. I'm not complaining but if you are in a relationship with an alcoholic the you might as well be there by yourself.
They call it "The back walking away", as that is all you see, the rush to escape to the pub or the park or bottle shop, you might as well be invisible. He loved me with a passion in a young mans way and tried so many times to get sober but the alcohol would win in the end.
It was a shame as he was a funny intelligent warm human being when he was sober and an absolute monster when he was drunk which was often and draining. So I let him go in the end with a kiss and a half unbelieving spirit. He was fine, he didn't die as I expected but has gone on to marry a year ago.
Hi Mother in Ireland telling me when I realised I hadn't heard from him for a year or so. I was worried about that fact, but he's fine. I know the lady he married, or he told me of her as he raced me around the kitchen one last time a year or more ago.
I had just laughed at him as I am madly in love with someone else and he didn't have a high hope in hell of me being attracted to him any more. His girl rang there as he, inebriated, tried to paw me, for old times sake. the phone stopped his headlong dash.
I was able to get him out the door with a wave and a smile, put his number on call reject and forgot all about him. Then Alena, my daughter, started asking about him as she was very fond of him. So in the end to quieten her and my own mind chatter, dreading something happening to him. I rang His Ma, Chris, In Dublin,
"Oh did you not hear, Janette, he's married, a year ago"
And I was delighted as that is what he said he would never do and he did, bless him and I hope she has children. As that is also what he said he would never have. And I thought he should. I told his Ma to not tell him I had called.
"Not, tell him " she queried.
"Yes, I don't want to hear from him, I just wanted to know he was OK"
She was puzzled but I know Nev as a lover and she knew him as a son and there was a vast difference. She is a lovely lady his Mum, quite devout in her Catholicism and has called on all the Saints to help her son and oldest child.
None of it ever worked nor did stints in rehab and psychiatric or mountains of pills. He told me in the end he was an alcoholic, which is rare, and I am glad he did. We then could go on with our lives without each other.
So we did and remained good friends and then came the last time, as there is always a last time. And now I think we always were friends and should have left it at that. But we tried to form a relationship around our initial attraction and it was not to be. He's better in smaller and smaller doses and finally no dose at all.
On self reflection I think I was so "fucked" up then I just wanted to be with some one more "fucked" up than I was. And then I could feel superior and care taking when I should have been taking care of myself.
But like his old girlfriend who he left for me, who rang me up one day when I was well over him and said he had been ringing her for sex. said.
"I don't want him in my life but if he was in jail or something I would probably help him out"
I felt exactly the same, a sort of tired and angry desperation, a funny helplessness at his helplessness. But we decided to go our separate ways, I confronted him with the ex girlfriends call and that he had been asking her for sex as we by then were sleeping in separate rooms.
he told the truth and siad yes he had rung her up for sex as he wasn't getting any and tried to make me feel guilty but I didn't as he was a nightmare to sleep with. He smelt of this funny odour when he was reaaky badly drunk, almost making your eyes water, an acid like smell like cut onion or ammonia.
And he had restless legs syndrome and snored and called out, so he went and slept in the back room off the family room, and I could no longer hear him. He was agitated about the house, needing restoring and refused to help or see my passiom at making something old into something beautiful.
The last time I went to the house we had shared he was in the back room, cold and wet and shivering. he had soiled himself and there was urine and broken glass all over the floor. he had forgotten his keys and broke a window with a brick to get in.
I left him there and walked out across the hall floor my socks covered in urine and freezing and stripped them off at the door and ran to my car and turned on the heat, shaking with cold and anger and auger and drove miles to Narre Warren and collapsed into a warm bed.
I was glad it was over and I was glad that I saw the son the Mother never saw lying helpless in a bed, covered in his own excreta and urine and blubbering about his unhappy life. I had tried Al Anon and taken him to AA, and I knew I had done everything I could to help him and in the end he didn't need it.
So when I told my Dad I was happy I was with Nev and I knew I wasn't. With an alcoholic the scariest thing is not knowing what is going to greet you as he comes in the door. This is after he might not have come home for 3 days, a new job thrown over or discarded always with a valid reason. Bull shit in other words.
Once again I was being shown a lesson, caring for some one who needed "MY Help", and I stupidly thinking I could cure him, just like my ex husband. It's called Martyr syndrome and as caring people women seem to suffer from it more so than men.
I thought after, who was I to try and save 2 men who didn't want to be cured nor helped? My first husband being violent and angry and Nev being an alcoholic. Was I the one "Fucked Up" or were they ? My brother in law saying to me once that my ex husbands new marriage seemed to have lasted and I thought.
"you ignorant man".
Mine had lasted too for 20 years but my brother in law only saw the charismatic, the funny, the charming. I alone and the girls saw the black face screaming at us in fury and backhanding Yvette into the bath when she was pregnant with Kyle, calling her "slut".
Only we saw the foam gathering on the sides of his lips before a blow would fall, from a 15 stone man. We had no hope to fight him back physically and in the end when he left we tried to not go near him anymore. He was charged with common assault when he beat Yvette, the tiniest, once more, she with a baby in her arms, that he dragged out of the way.
He was with two others, his 17 year old girlfriend (She told him she was 29 ) and a male friend armed with a shifter in his back pocket. And he attacked Yvette putting her in hospital and she had him arrested. or the other people in the house at the time did.
Grabbing Kyle and running to the Police Station with him under one of their arms and blurting out the story to the police and all 3 were arrested and bailed and had to sign in every week for a year.
My ex alone charged, Yvette was hospitalised and when I went to see her she cried like a little girl
"He's my Dad,", she said.
"He wouldn't stop hitting me Mum, he's my Dad" and she just sobbed.
He was charged with assault and if he assaults again he goes to jail and that stopped his gallop at long last. he feared jail having been in reform school once and hating it.
he had been violent to his workers, me, he took a swing at my Lawyer in the family court and was branded
"Little less than a thug" and i had been married to him all that time and according to my solicitor that made me worse than him.
You live in hope, that it will stop, violence, but like someone drinking to excess it won;t unless a lesson is learned. I refused to go out with anyone for ages after Nev, realising that I was attracted to men I thought I could "help".
men like my Mum, a bit crazy and dramatic, just like she was. But always I remembered my Dad's words,
"Are you happy, love?"
And I wasn't, not at all and I decided in honour to my Dad I would stay away from the dark side of men and live single and happy until the feeling of wanting to "help" had gone away. So I buried myself in work and stayed single. I eventually met a very nice man, a kind man. a sweet man.
But it did not strike the right balance with me, I had to fancy them as well and I didn't. So I eased him out of my picture and the next thing within a month I fell head over heels with a man I am still in love with.
He remains my ideal picture of a man and will always be so, filling my heart, brain and being with delight every time I see him and that is as it should be, being "What it is". love and I am now lucky enough to know the difference.
Miracles really do happen, sometimes God throws down a light of shimmering goldness and we are dazzled by it, lighting the way in a sometimes darkened life. The light relieving shadow and sadness and guiding you to the right places, the lightness of being, the rich and sweet moments that light up a life, "the blossoms that light up for the blind" as Rolf Jacobsen writes in his poem "Guardian Angel"
Or the fabulous feeling that comes over you late on a Tuesday afternoon and just makes you ridiculously happy. What makes me happy about him ?. His glow, his freshness, his buoyancy, his love of me when he looks at me and I feel wanting and wanton.
I want to grab him right there and lead him by the hand to the fun and comfort I offer, which is exactly what I did when he first approached me as lover. Having known him already 3 months and resisting his attempts on his " turf" to be something more.That was just ego on his part and something I had a feeling he had done before.
And in the end he came to my "turf" and was shaking, showing me his hands shaking. This happens a lot with my men, I had one who took me to the pictures once and shook all the way through the movie. I wondered if I am that terrifying and they say I am.
I have never been ashamed of my body and see sex as the "Best", seeing it as natural and lovely and have an incredibly high sex drive just like all of my family I found out. Something we all inherited from my Dad. But these days I keep it contained so I don't make wrong choices. And I haven't had that many many at all, Bob for 20 years and I was a virgin when I met him and stayed that way for a long time.
We didn't quite make it till we married, and then I was with Nev for 10 years and he filled my heart and mind so much I never even glanced at another man. I made up for being a teenage bride when I divorced and was highly promiscuous for about a year after I divorced.
It was like being let out of jail and I went to the "far Side" for a while, dating about 6 males all at once
and I couldn't have cared less about their feelings only my own. I would break dates with some for better offers from others. And continued like that, laughing at them up my sleeve, so devoted and so young and then I was caught out badly and stopped seeing all of them and stayed single for a few years.
Concentrating on Kyle and Yvette for a change and having skin to skin contact with my little boy every day, by hugging him and kissing him was enough for me to leave males alone for a while. I needed to heal from years of control and violence and I must admit Nev helped most with that.
He was always loving and affectionate and having been starved of it for years lapped it up like a cat with the cream. Nev healed me from my ex and that's why he remained my friend for so long and will always be so in my heart. I couldn't have gone on longer than I did with him It reached it's natural Zenith all by its self.
He cooked and cleaned and helped out more than any man I had met and he was there every night with welcoming arms and a kiss and I had never had that happen before. At first I found it a bit much and had to adjust and apart from his drinking and his meanness at not turning on the heat his only one fault was not putting the seat down on the toilet.
Now I live cheek by jowl to five growing males I realise that is so common. As is not hearing anything you say, mumbling, being lazy and sweetly adorable at the same time. And the
"In a Minute" conversations you have when you ask them to do something.
It's never right now, but always "In a minute" and I have to walk away and let them take their time as at first I just want to throttle them if they don't do it "Right Now". I am exacting and because of my former job as boss have to shut up and realise I am not talking to employees but real live kids.
I figured it's good training for me when I end up sharing with another male, I won't have become insular by living only by myself. because I think you get like that if you don't have kids running around, driving you nuts but delighting you at the same time.
Last night I had a little man at my unit door dressed as Bumblebee from Transformers and his cow had a hole in it. he wanted me to fix it for him and he conveyed this with not too many words as we are worried about him not speaking much at 3.
But then he liked the green light hanging from the roof and then pointed to the green cotton reel in my sewing basket.
"Same", he said, his pink dummy forming a plug in his mouth that he had to speak around. He is a lot calmer with dummy in mouth at the moment but he bites most of them to bits, but he seems to be finally "getting it" that biting on it brings "No dummy" and that is a situation he wants to avoid at all costs.
He's clever, this one and is in day care 2 days a week now as he is soon bored with his own company and needs constant stimulation. Yvette was not happy when I first suggested it, him going to family day care one day a week.
But she thought about it, screamed and ranted at me for a bit and then did it anyway. She always does this. She did it with the first carer we had after she left Simon saying no F***ing Indian Bitch was minding her F***ing kids and months later when she finally got to meet Raylene Roy thought she was the bast thing since sliced bread and continues to do so.
At that time Yvette was so ill she had the Cat team coming very day to see her and treat her. She was put on some heavy medication that caused "Witches milk" to appear in her breasts and she porked out just a little, but she freaked anyway and had to come off the medication.
She was given counselling and time and eventually she came good, staying with me about 6 months before getting her first house. Then a bigger one where she lives now, a new brick house in Cranbourne, 4 bedrooms and 2 toilets and a huge backyard where I have a unit. my "Shoebox", that is big for one person, lounge, kitchen bathroom, bedroom.
I had to cull everything when I came here, turfing two lounge suites and dining table given to Yvette. I sold everything on Ebay even the revolting old brown couch. All of it went and stripped back to basics I re decorated to my taste. The unit being mine till that day I die and is transportable to any other piece of land in Victoria and not counted as Roof Space on land as it is demountable.
So we can have another put here. This time by Kids Under Cover and we are waiting for that, a 2 bedroom unit with no kitchen for 2 of the teen boys. No kitchen because of OH&S issues, but I would be no good to them anyway. Unless it's for washing up the dishes they will cart in from Yvette's house.
When I left my violent hubby once and went and stayed with my Dad he said,
"You're not ready to leave him"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you are fretting about a fridge and beds and a washing machine"
"So, I need those things"
"No you don't, everything in life you will get again"
I looked at him puzzled,
he explained carefully and patiently,
"When you are really ready you will walk out from that C***, (My Dad never swore) with the clothes on your back and everything you had before will come again, you will be given a fridge and a couch and beds and you will have happy children"
And in the end he was right, I did leave with nothing except myself and my children and we got back everything we didn't have.
Now we have 4 dwellings between us, 2 cars to every household and own every thing we have. it may not be much but it's "ours" and can't be taken away by anyone. Yvette and I share a block of land and the care of the garden and kids and animals. And that is all we need for now. Love you my wonderful Dad, he also said as he grew older that older men should run the country. That older men grew wise and cared for the larger good.
It was a message he seemed determined to pass on to me, he married his long time girlfriend when he knew he was dying, she had been with him for 15 years and made him happy and she was 33 years younger than him. That was Dad outrageous and living it up large until the day he died.
I remain in awe of his love and devotion to his wife and children. he stayed with my Mum, Nat till the very end, the last day of her life even though she was mad by then. And he remained devoted to all his children, all of us and Joyce and John his "love child", unknown to us until just recently.
My Dad remains the biggest influence in my life mainly apart from the normal things because he passed on to me his buoyancy, his wisdom, his gentle ways, and his innate kindness. He had been raised by a brutal Father and vowed to never ever hit his won kids and he never did.
He made us laugh at his awful jokes but the main legacy he left us all was his love of music. We are all addicted to the tunes, hushing people when a particularly haunting or poignant song comes on, as we have to "appreciate" the music. and when we do, we hear Dad.
And I won the Cougar Fridge and gave it to the "Darwinites"
Love Janette
