On this day, at this time, 6 years ago, I was driving through Hampstead. To the outside world, it was an unexceptional day; a slightly cloudy June morning, the air still damp from the morning dew. Local residents were beginning to stir, and women gathered at the foot of their front gardens still in their night attire, collecting the mail and stopping to gossip.
The few cars travelling northbound on the A41 at this hour moved as steadily as the heartbeat of my father, lying in a hospital bed in a high dependency unit down the road. As the morning progressed, the traffic would slow, and so would his heart. But while the traffic on the A41 would keep flowing, my father’s organ function would never resume. By the end of that day, the residents of Hampstead would have returned home from work, the sun would set on another day in June 2001, and my father would be dead, his lifeless body still warm, as it lay several metres below the ground in rural Hertfordshire.
Losing a parent – and I believe this to transcend any age and stage of life – is literally unrooting. The pain of loss is so tangible that it manifests itself in physical pain. I felt as though someone had reached into my body and ripped out my heart. But there is also an unknown security to many people with 2 parents in the grounding offered by being someone’s child. It places you within a context; the structure nurtures and protects you, and you understand yourself as the product of particular ancestries. Losing that, or part of that, literally threw me.
I learned, in the days and weeks following his passing, about my father as a person. I watched his parents, wife and other daughters mourning him; observed the loss felt by his close circle of friends; listened to the anecdotes of business partners, old acquaintances and childhood friends. This, while comforting, was at the same time a very alienating experience: the man who had taught me to swim, ride a bike, read before I had even started school, (pushy Jewish parents!), who taught me how to change a tyre on a car, who spent hours explaining to me the structures of European politics, was not just my father: he was an independent person, known to many people in lots of different ways. Again, this was quite disconcerting; I didn’t know what – or who - I was mourning.
With hindsight now, I recognise that my behaviour and life in the last 6 years has been part of an attempt to build a structure and foundation for myself that was knocked down when I lost one parent (and the relationship with the other naturally shifted as a result). I threw myself into my career and my further studies with vigour, drive and determination, I changed my lifestyle and diet, became an exercise enthusiast, ran 3 marathons and took up kickboxing and weight training, and lost nearly half my body weight. I set myself harder and more demanding goals than my father ever would have required of me.
In the process, I have become incredibly strong. With no one to rebel against, I have instead adopted a conciliatory attitude towards my dad. In a strange way, our relationship has continued and matured beyond his death. In his absence as a sounding board and someone to argue politics with, I have had to learn how to form an intelligent opinion by myself (still working on it!), and become more confident in delivering an argument. And somehow, I have taken on many of his characteristics. A growing cynic, I hold no spiritual beliefs about my dad looking down on me, but I do feel that I carry him inside me, and this continues to form the person I mature into.
I still feel that a part of me is missing, but in its place, a new part has grown. This morning, as the traffic moves steadily through the streets of London, just as it did on that morning 6 years ago, the cycle of life continues.
Let’s make the most of it.
The few cars travelling northbound on the A41 at this hour moved as steadily as the heartbeat of my father, lying in a hospital bed in a high dependency unit down the road. As the morning progressed, the traffic would slow, and so would his heart. But while the traffic on the A41 would keep flowing, my father’s organ function would never resume. By the end of that day, the residents of Hampstead would have returned home from work, the sun would set on another day in June 2001, and my father would be dead, his lifeless body still warm, as it lay several metres below the ground in rural Hertfordshire.
Losing a parent – and I believe this to transcend any age and stage of life – is literally unrooting. The pain of loss is so tangible that it manifests itself in physical pain. I felt as though someone had reached into my body and ripped out my heart. But there is also an unknown security to many people with 2 parents in the grounding offered by being someone’s child. It places you within a context; the structure nurtures and protects you, and you understand yourself as the product of particular ancestries. Losing that, or part of that, literally threw me.
I learned, in the days and weeks following his passing, about my father as a person. I watched his parents, wife and other daughters mourning him; observed the loss felt by his close circle of friends; listened to the anecdotes of business partners, old acquaintances and childhood friends. This, while comforting, was at the same time a very alienating experience: the man who had taught me to swim, ride a bike, read before I had even started school, (pushy Jewish parents!), who taught me how to change a tyre on a car, who spent hours explaining to me the structures of European politics, was not just my father: he was an independent person, known to many people in lots of different ways. Again, this was quite disconcerting; I didn’t know what – or who - I was mourning.
With hindsight now, I recognise that my behaviour and life in the last 6 years has been part of an attempt to build a structure and foundation for myself that was knocked down when I lost one parent (and the relationship with the other naturally shifted as a result). I threw myself into my career and my further studies with vigour, drive and determination, I changed my lifestyle and diet, became an exercise enthusiast, ran 3 marathons and took up kickboxing and weight training, and lost nearly half my body weight. I set myself harder and more demanding goals than my father ever would have required of me.
In the process, I have become incredibly strong. With no one to rebel against, I have instead adopted a conciliatory attitude towards my dad. In a strange way, our relationship has continued and matured beyond his death. In his absence as a sounding board and someone to argue politics with, I have had to learn how to form an intelligent opinion by myself (still working on it!), and become more confident in delivering an argument. And somehow, I have taken on many of his characteristics. A growing cynic, I hold no spiritual beliefs about my dad looking down on me, but I do feel that I carry him inside me, and this continues to form the person I mature into.
I still feel that a part of me is missing, but in its place, a new part has grown. This morning, as the traffic moves steadily through the streets of London, just as it did on that morning 6 years ago, the cycle of life continues.
Let’s make the most of it.
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