Filed under: Comment, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
So yesterday went pretty well.
No one quit [yet] and everyone seemed to get along.
In some respects, that might be the most successful thing I’ll have achieved with The Kennedys.
Today we’re going to talk about emotion and the power it has over us.
I bring this up because on my holiday, I went to see some of my Italian family and I have to say that the whole thing was very emotional for me.
Part of this was because I stayed in the house, in the small town, in the small province where my Mum lived.
It was a place my Mum always regarded as incredibly special and important to her and to be there – with my family for the first time – was incredibly emotional for me.
Seeing my son run around a home that my Mum had run around as a child was both wonderful to see and hard to take.
Without doubt she would have been so very, very happy we were there, I just wish she was there to see it.
I looked at everything differently while I was there.
Everywhere I went I tried to imagine Mum as a child playing in the streets, visiting the park that she eventually took me to as a child [and that I took Otis too], laughing with her friends.
When I stood on one of the old houses balcony’s, I kept thinking Mum had done the same thing at one time.
In some ways, it made me feel I was near her again … that I had ‘brought her home’ and I loved that, though it also meant the rawness of her loss came to the surface again.
While I was there I met some of Mum’s school friends.
Some I had met before, some I hadn’t.
To hear them talk so wonderfully about my Mum really got to me.
It’s not that those words hadn’t been said by others before, it was just that these people knew my Mum in a way few did – certainly not me – and somehow that meant their words had even more power.
It was a privilege to be there and I am so glad I was able to bring my new family together with my old, but I don’t mind telling you I was emotionally exhausted when I left.
But there’s one story I want to talk about, because it’s a story I’m going to be telling The Kennedys students about today.
While I was in Italy, one of my relations showed me a bunch of old photographs.
One was of my family home in Nottingham and when I turned the photo over to see if had been dated, I saw this …
That’s my Dad’s writing.
Writing I had not seen for a long, long time.
And I have to say, it knocked me sideways.
I couldn’t stop looking at it.
Running my finger across it.
Like standing on that balcony in Mum’s family home, this writing suddenly made me feel close to my Dad again.
Not just emotionally, but physically.
It didn’t matter it was just an address.
It didn’t matter it was so old, I’m guessing it was when Mum & Dad had just moved into the area given he had spelt ‘Bridgford’ incorrectly.
It was my Dad and this had moved him from my past into my present.
And that was an amazing feeling. A precious, amazing feeling.
Now that’s what I call a real family holiday.
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I wish I could write so openly about my feelings Robert. You have a rare talent. This post is wonderful, as all your posts about your family are.
Comment by George August 16, 2016 @ 6:34 amenough with the niceness campbell, i cant give you shit and you deserve it everyfuckingday.
Comment by andy@cynic August 16, 2016 @ 6:40 amBack to normal tomorrow.
Comment by Rob August 16, 2016 @ 7:53 amthat bad photoshop of your family makes it look like theyre all smiling because youre on the other side of them. as in behind the plexiglass of the prison where you are serving 50 years for planning crimes.
Comment by andy@cynic August 16, 2016 @ 6:42 amAndy FTW.
Comment by DH August 16, 2016 @ 6:46 amThanks for ruining a photo that I loved by nature of the fact I would never have it for real. Cheers.
Comment by Rob August 16, 2016 @ 7:52 amok, im a fucking prick. didnt mean to ruin what that photo means to you.
Comment by andy@cynic August 16, 2016 @ 9:23 amGotcha.
Comment by Rob August 16, 2016 @ 9:27 amyou fuck.
Comment by andy@cynic August 16, 2016 @ 9:48 amat least you can say your girly, shitty neat handwriting was better than your old mans. but then barristers handwriting is never meant to be fucking legible is it where no one gives a shit about what planners scribble.
Comment by andy@cynic August 16, 2016 @ 6:45 amWhen you look at Rob then see his beautiful handwriting, you realise this is one of the great mysteries of our time.
Comment by DH August 16, 2016 @ 6:47 amOnly stylish thing about me apparently.
Comment by Rob August 16, 2016 @ 7:51 amxoxox
Comment by Jemma King August 16, 2016 @ 6:54 amI have said this before Robert, but your parents would be very proud how you have turned out. They did a good job with you, I know it would not have been easy.
Comment by Lee Hill August 16, 2016 @ 7:20 amI think they would agree with all those statements Lee.
Comment by Rob August 16, 2016 @ 7:52 am[…] amazing June consisting of an amazing conference in Paris, my wife’s birthday and a phenomenal holiday in too many […]
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