So on Sunday, it would be my Dad’s 79th birthday.
That means he has been gone 19 years.
NINETEEN.
That blows my mind because in some ways, it only feels like a couple of years since he died.
Obviously I wish he was still here.
Healthy.
Happy.
With Mum by his side.
And if he was, I would be sending them tickets to come to America.
To see their only son.
Their daughter in law.
The beloved grandson.
And we would sit in our back-garden in the evening sun and talk while we looked at Otis running around, doing his ‘missions’.
And at some point, I would stop and look at them all interacting … conscious of how special this moment was, trying to take it all in.
Dad’s kind eyes.
Mum’s beautiful face.
My wife’s happy smile.
My son’s infectious joy.
With a backdrop of laughter and love … all mingling together in a way that made it absolutely perfect.
A perfect I’d want to remember forever because in some ways, it would be everything I had ever wished for and wanted.
Happy birthday for Sunday my dear Dad.
Not a day goes by without me thinking of you.
Rxxx
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about with that post headline, you can click here.
But that aside, here’s hoping you have a good day … whether that’s getting lots of cards or not getting lots of abuse.
Filed under: Childhood, Comment, Dad, Death, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, Otis, Parents
Oh Dad, how can it be 18 years.
How is that possible?
I remember that phonecall like it was yesterday.
You had been in hospital since Christmas having taken a turn for the worse.
And then on the 27th December, Mum called to say it was very bad and the Doctors had told her that I should come back right away.
In a weird way, this did not worry me.
We had gone through the same situation twice in the last 3 months and both times, you had pulled through.
But then I realised Mum’s voice sounded a bit different … more scared … and that’s when I started to get worried.
As you know, after a rather traumatic flight from Sydney, I got to Nottingham and was by your side at the QMC.
You were very poorly, but you knew I was there and it seemed to help.
But the strange thing is I can’t really remember what happened between arriving by your side and the Doctor asking me if I wanted him to remove the suffering you were going through.
I know Mum and I spent every day – from the moment visiting hours started to when they ended – next to you.
I know I told you how much I loved you. How I tried to will you back to health.
But the actual conversations and considerations are a total blank.
I’d like to say it’s because 18 years is a long time, but it’s actually because my brain refused to let me deal with the realities of your situation until that conversation with the Doctor.
4 years of delusion and denial pricked by a single conversation with the Doctor.
4 years of ignoring Mum as she quietly and tenderly tried to prepare me for the inevitable.
I certainly hope I was better when Mum passed away.
Of course, it was less expected than your situation and yet, deep down, I feared it may happen – as, it seems, did Mum – which is why I was much more aware of what was happening or what may happen.
So I need to thank you yet again, for helping me learn.
For trying to ensure I didn’t face more pain than I absolutely needed to.
Oh Dad, I wish you were here.
I wish I could hear the questions you would have for me.
I wish I could look into your bright blue eyes as you heard what I’d been up to over the last 18 years.
The decisions I’ve made …
The situations I’ve encountered …
The life I have somehow managed to live …
I would give anything to hear the pride – mixed with incredulity – you’d express about the career I’ve managed to forge.
The places it’s let me live. The people it’s let me meet. The experiences it’s let me enjoy.
The family it has let me have.
The daughter-in-law you would absolutely adore.
And the grandson you would be totally obsessed with.
But you’re not here … not physically, anyway … but in a weird way, Mum passing has made me feel closer to you.
Not that you were ever far away, but 18 years meant I had got used to the memory of you rather than the presence of you.
However now Mum has joined you, I kind of feel you’re both near me again.
I know that’s mad and I can see you shaking your head at me … but it’s true.
Don’t worry, I’ve not become a religious fool – but the fact you’re together has helped me a lot because I never was happy that you were both apart from each other.
But now, my mind, you’re back together, as you should be.
As you always were throughout my childhood.
And I cannot tell you how special that was to me.
Even more so now.
So while today is a day of sadness, it is also a day of joy … because you will be happy to know I am no longer lost in the pain of your final few years and can now focus on the wonderful life you had and we shared, exemplified when I had the honour of discovering the card you wrote to Mum when I was born.
I never doubted how much you loved me, but finding this was the verbal equivalent of one of your warm, wonderful hugs.
Sure I cried my eyes out, but oh what a feeling that was.
I so hope Otis feels the same way when he finally stops trying to wriggle out of my arms everytime I give him a cuddle. Ha.
So now it is time to go and I want to leave you by saying that while it has been 18 years, the love I have for you has never faded – if anything, quite the opposite – and even though I wish with all my heart that you were still here to be involved in the daily rituals of my life, the fact you’re with Mum makes the sadness a bit more manageable.
Still miss you though.
Love you Dad.
Rx
So as many of you know, I lost my wonderful Mum in 2015.
It was – and still is – a hugely traumatic incident, but as I wrote [and wrote and wrote] at various times over that dark period, there were moments of relief.
Some of that came from the outpouring of compassion and care I received from so many wonderful people, some of it was through the inappropriate – and yet utterly perfect – actions of my son, but there was one other that I haven’t talked about.
When we were organising Mum’s funeral, I was asked about what music we wanted.
While there were so many possibilities, I thought the best thing to do was choose songs that Mum loved and the easiest way to do that was to look at her iPad and review the ’25 most played songs’.
It was quite an eclectic list but that also was testimony to my Mum’s openness to music, regardless of era.
So after talking it through with Jill, we got it down to 3 pieces …
Nat King Cole’s Wonderful World
Emeli Sande’s Clown
Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts
So far so good.
So we come to the day of the funeral – a day I was dreading – and the ceremony was beautiful.
The church was full of people wanting to pay their respects from far and wide, little Otis slept through the whole thing – ensuring we didn’t have to worry about him crying through a very emotional moment in our lives – the celebrant was utterly wonderful and I even managed to make it through my eulogy without breaking down too much.
As funerals go, it had been beautiful.
And then it happened.
You see, when we were choosing the songs for the funeral, I didn’t really listen to more than 5 seconds of them.
Part of this was because I knew the songs already and the other part was I had been too emotionally raw to hear all the songs all the way through given what they were going to be associated with.
Now before I go on, I should point out I’ve never been good with lyrics.
Even when I was in a band and wrote some of the songs, I could never remember what were the words. I am much more a melody person than a lyrical one … which is my way of explaining what happened as the funeral drew to a close.
The ceremony was over and people were invited to leave the church.
As we sat there, waiting to depart, Christina Perri’s song started to play.
Maybe it was because I had nothing to do as I waited to be able to leave my seat … maybe it’s because I was in deep reflection of what I had just experienced … but I started to listen to the lyrics a bit more intently.
This is what I heard:
I know I can’t take one more step towards you
‘Cause all that’s waiting is regret
Don’t you know I’m not your ghost anymore
You lost the love I loved the most
I learned to live half alive
And now you want me one more time
And who do you think you are?
Runnin’ ’round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You’re gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don’t come back for me
Who do you think you are?
While the sentiment of the song is what I assumed it was – the sadness of the people you have left behind – the context of it was ENTIRELY different.
Instead of it being a heartfelt message of goodbye, it was a middle finger to a cold, selfish bastard of a player.
In other words, the most utterly inappropriate song to play at a funeral … especially at my wonderful Mum’s funeral.
On hearing this, I literally grabbed Jill’s hand and said, “Let’s go. Now”.
Fortunately, I found the whole thing a bit amusing – which stopped me from falling too deep in the darkness that I was feeling – plus there’s the fact it was one of her favourite songs so it was not an entirely random choice.
Later that night, I told Shelly – my best friend Paul’s wife – about the incident and she admitted that when she heard it, she had thought it was rather “an unusual choice of song”.
The thing is, I think my Mum would have found it amusing too.
I can imagine her laughing about it … like she is in the photo above.
Which is why if people were to ask me how my Mum’s funeral was, I would reply – as funny as it may seem to say – it was absolutely perfect.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Birthday, Childhood, China, Comment, Confidence, Context, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Football, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Grand announcements, Health, Home, Hope, Innocence, Italy, Jill, LaLaLand, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents, Sentimentality, Shanghai, Shelly, WeigelCampbell
So today is June 1.
In 11 days, I wave goodbye to my forties and enter a decade that seems impossible for me to fathom.
50.
FIFTY.
Seriously, how did this happen?
I still remember sitting on the hill outside Erica’s newsagent with my best mate Paul around 1978, when we worked out that in the year 2000, we would be turning 30.
But here we are, 11 days from 50.
[Though it’s 15 days for Paul, who will LOVE those 4 days where he can bang on about how he is a decade younger than me … though he will also moan that my present for him isn’t like the full page newspaper ad I got him when he was 40, but a Forest shirt signed by all the members of the 1980 European Cup team. Asshole. He knows about this present as I bought it for him years ago so I’m not ruining anything for him. But I still have a surprise for him. Oh yes.]
Turning 30 bothered me a bit.
I was totally fine with becoming 40.
But 50!
I’m both bricking it and utterly casual about it.
And while there are some practical reasons for the shitting myself part – health, work, life in general – the fact of the matter is the older I get, the better my life has become.
I totally get the privilege of that statement, I don’t take it for granted at all, but it is definitely true.
Personally, professionally, emotionally …
Sure there have been some bumps along the way – some terribly hard and emotionally destructive ones – but looking at the big picture, the reality is my life has generally been on an upward trajectory.
Now even I know that it can’t keep going like that forever … but it doesn’t mean I have to stop trying.
The fact is, the older you get, the more you discover …
From what you like, what you don’t … to what you didn’t know and what you want to know.
And what makes it even more amazing – and annoying – is that every step you take, in whatever direction, reveals a whole host of other possibilities you would like to explore and investigate.
The problem is time is now officially, not on your side … so there’s a point where you have to accept you won’t get to try, play, experiment with all you want to do, so while that might put some people off, it kind of makes me want to try and pack more in.
And I am … because on top of work, Metallica, the school with Martin, I’ve already agreed to do a couple more projects that are intriguing and – frankly – ridiculous.
But there’s another reason for this attitude and it’s because my Dad died at 60.
Death is something I’ve talked a lot about over the years – mainly due to both my parents passing away.
I’ve talked a lot about the importance of taking about it, but I must admit, I’m scared of it.
I’m in generally good health, but fifty is still 50 and my Dad still died just 10 years on from this age.
Now of course it doesn’t mean I will … and I’ve come to this completely unscientific view that I should live till I’m at least 71 because if you take away my Dad’s age of dying [60]from my Mum’s [83] … that leave 23 years. Halve that … add it to Dad’s age … and voila, I will live till at least 71.
But then that means I only have 21 years left.
TWENTY ONE.
That’s nowhere near enough.
My wonderful little boy is only 5 for fucks sake. 26 is way too young to lose your Dad … hell, that’s even younger than I was when I lost mine.
Years ago, an old boss I looked upto said that if you can’t feasibly double your age, that is when you know you are – at best – middle aged or – at worst – the last stage of your life.
Well I suppose I can still feasibly double my age – even if it’s against the average age of death for a man in the UK [79.2] – but the reality is where I’m going is shorter than where I’ve been.
But shorter doesn’t mean less interesting.
And arguably, I have more exciting things in my life now – both personally and professionally – than I have ever had.
It also helps I am insanely immature with a desire for mischief, experimentation, creativity and adventure.
And I intend to fill it up with even more.
Fortunately I get that from a number of sources.
My wife.
My son.
My job.
My other jobs.
My friends.
My mind.
A while back, Pete said something I found pretty profound.
He said the narrative of strategy tended to focus on the importance of curiosity when discovery is far more valuable for driving the standard of the work you create and the adventure you go on.
Now I’ve written a lot about how I hate when planners talk about curiosity – as if they’re the only people who have it – but I really, really like that idea of the hunger for discovery.
I absolutely have that.
I owe so much of what I have to that.
The countries I’ve lived in. The people I’ve worked with. And most importantly, the family I am fortunate to have.
So while I enter a new decade, I will continue to live like it’s the old one.
Not in terms of dressing like I’m younger than I am – mainly because I have always dressed like I live in 1986 – but with the hunger, ambition and desire I’ve always had.
I genuinely believe my best work is still ahead of me.
Truly believe that.
And the goal of this decade is to achieve some of that while discovering new things that make me believe even better work can still lie in my future.