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Goodbye to my father

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mouser:
An update:
I just got back from my father's memorial service, which we held in his home of 40 years.
It was much more emotional (for me and others) than I expected.  Mostly I was just surprised at the full life he had and the friends and family who held him in such esteem.

One thing that really jumped out at me was that there were certain things that i paid little attention to during his life -- his writing (he self published a dozen books of stories, novel, etc.) -- took on such significance after his death.

It's not that I didn't on rare occasion talk to him about a particular piece of writing he did that I liked -- but these were very rare occasions.

But after the memorial I couldn't help but think how wonderful it would have been for my father if we had had a day when he was still living, which was just focused on fawning over him and the stuff he made.  I think he would have really appreciated that.

So to all of you who have living parents, my suggestion is, find an excuse to fawn over them for a day, and let them know how amazing they are, etc.

eleman:
An update:
I just got back from my father's memorial service, which we held in his home of 40 years.
It was much more emotional (for me and others) than I expected.  Mostly I was just surprised at the full life he had and the friends and family who held him in such esteem.

One thing that really jumped out at me was that there were certain things that i paid little attention to during his life -- his writing (he self published a dozen books of stories, novel, etc.) -- took on such significance after his death.

It's not that I didn't on rare occasion talk to him about a particular piece of writing he did that I liked -- but these were very rare occasions.

But after the memorial I couldn't help but think how wonderful it would have been for my father if we had had a day when he was still living, which was just focused on fawning over him and the stuff he made.  I think he would have really appreciated that.

So to all of you who have living parents, my suggestion is, find an excuse to fawn over them for a day, and let them know how amazing they are, etc.

-mouser (June 29, 2016, 09:49 AM)
--- End quote ---

One of the best piece of advice I heard for a while. Will certainly do.

IainB:
You are lucky that there are only relatively minor regrets there, @mouser.

There are many who have been much less lucky. There can be a lot of bottled-up stuff in people's lives where they didn't face up to and address issues/problems with their parents whilst they were alive, or didn't (say) show/tell them that they were loved.
Similarly, parents can neglect similar things with their children (it works both ways).
As an example, I know of one adult who described to me that they were categorically told at age 5 or 6 that they were not loved by their parents or family. It had left evidential and permanent personality/character damage that led to theft (probably as a substitute for the much-needed security) by the child when grown up. I absolutely pity that now grown-up child - an adult who craves security and love and yet cannot seem to make an honest, normal loving relationship with anyone, having to scheme and live in a perpetual sense of fear that they will be discovered for what they are, yet unable to change.

I cannot comprehend the blind cruelty of the parents/family that would treat a child so.
These things can mess up a child's head and stay with them on the path into adulthood and to the grave, and if they have children of their own along that path, then they may be prone to unwittingly causing similar problems for those children - it's kind of "psycho-genetic".

Not that change isn't possible, but it takes enormous strength of character for "broken" people to "fix"/change themselves - or even accept that they may need to "fix"/change themselves - and they are usually only able to change if they allow themselves to undergo appropriate psychiatric counselling - e.g., as described in The Road Less Travelled.

I was once among several observers of a therapy session where the "patient" was a young man who held a bitter grudge for the way he had been physically abused (beaten) and ceaselessly put down and belittled by a dominating and brutal father. Then the father died prematurely, and the young man no longer had the opportunity to "have it out" with his father when he grew up. It had left him with an internal seething cauldron of anger and bitterness to have been so badly and unfairly treated by a parent whom he had wanted to love him and protect him.

The therapist sat the patient on a chair, facing an empty armchair, and told him to imagine that it was his father sitting in the armchair, and now he - the son - could tell his father what he had so much wanted to say to him.
And then it all came out. It was an unforgettable experience. It helped the patient enormously too.

Having been brought up in a family where I was loved as the "accidental"/unplanned last baby of 7, I held no idea that other people had not been so lucky, and the sorts of thing I describe above were real eye-openers for me.  Even though I did not know my father well when he died (mother had separated from him due to his alcoholism), she always said what a good husband and father he had been before, and I always felt that he loved me. He would write letters to me and the other children and sometimes send us small but very welcome gifts - Wow! A piece of smelly sulphurous rock from a New Zealand volcanic thermal region! A penknife from the boat he sailed to New Zealand on!. Lifetime treasures.
Me and my next older brother would sometimes be taken to spend time with him.

My only regret is that I didn't get to see more of him and get to know him better, as he died prematurely. I often think of him - and my mother, of course, who raised me on her own. I sometimes wonder what advice my father might have offered to help me in those difficult times in my life when I could have used some fatherly advice. The bits of advice I do recall are spotty - him showing me how to pee at the toilet without spraying all over the place, or how to fish in the sea, or how to row a boat, or how to wear a life-jacket, or how to use a whistle to scare nesting seagulls up from their nesting-places.

erikts:
I am sorry for your lost.

limelect:
Sorry to hear that.
Never have another sorrow.

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