2000 - Dad

As mentioned previously my father came over just after Charlotte was born in 2000 and he was evidently not well. In the three days that he spent with us he spent a lot of time lying down. My father had always been a bit of a hypochondriac and he would exaggerate the smallest ailment and of course nobody ever had it as bad as he did. I would like to point out that this is just my opinion of my father, my brothers and sister will probably disagree.

In the months that followed he was continuously going backwards and forwards to the Doctors, getting pills. I remember my mother telling me that the Doctor had finally given consent for him to have an x-ray. Apparently when they got to the hospital they found out that the radiologist was away for 2 weeks. I don't know how true this is as how does a hospital function without a radiologist?

In June of that year I phoned my father on father's day to say hello and he told me that he felt so bad that he hadn't got out of bed. I didn't think much of it because as I said he had always exaggerated his illnesses for sympathy. During that week my mother then phoned me to say that he had felt so bad on the Monday after I phoned that she took him down to their local accident and emergency, however when they got there they were told that there would be wait of at least 3 hours. My father had never been one for queuing and so they went back home.

On Friday my sister rang to tell me that he had been taken to hospital by ambulance that morning and she would ring me later to tell me any news. I still didn't think anything of it. I later heard that when the ambulance people arrived they told my mother that he would probably just get sent straight home. My sister rang me in the afternoon and told me through tears that he had cancer and only had a few weeks left.

I was devastated. After I put the phone down I looked at Charlotte and burst into tears. This man was never going to get to see his grandaughter grow up and she would never know him. It was too much and I cried for the rest of the day.

That evening we made plans to go to England and we left the next day. I spent the following week in England, going to see my father every day in hospital. It turned out he had pancreatic cancer. It was quite depressing as I could see he was losing his faculties and he was being quite nasty to my mother. Whilst I was there he had an operation that would pro-long his life by about 2 months. After the surgery I went to see him and he was crying, he said he'd wished he'd died during the surgery, that he didn't want to go through it anymore. I decided to come back to France, a decision I will always regret.

Steve's parents came out to France on Sunday 23rd July, exactly one month after my father had gone into hospital. Just as we sat down for lunch, my brother Mark rang me to tell me that he had died. I asked him how Janet was as I knew she'd take it really badly and then asked about mom who seemed to be taking it quite well. After putting the phone down I broke down in tears. I couldn't face Steve's parents and so went up to the bedroom and sobbed. Steve came in every now and then to check on me and then proposed that we went for a walk with Charlotte. Charlotte not being the first and foremost thing on my mind at this point was just picked up and put in the car. The walk did me some good, gave me some air, however half way round Charlotte started to cry and couldn't stop. When I checked her nappy, it was obvious she'd been sitting in pooh for a long time and her little bottom was red raw. I took the nappy off her and carried her the rest of the way back to the car, still crying.

Steve's parents left the next day to go on a golfing holiday and would be back on Saturday. We decided that there was no point rushing back to England, as there didn't seem any point. My mother informed me that the funeral would be the following Tuesday and so we booked our flights to go back on the Saturday. I couldn't face staying at my parent's house so we checked into a hotel nearby. On Monday before the funeral we had been invited to see the body, none of the others wanted to go as they had all been there when he died. As I hadn't been there, I wanted to see him one last time. I cried as soon as I saw him, his face was very gaunt and his body bloated. My mother had come with me and once again didn't react. I assumed she was either in shock, denial or didn't want to break down in front of the kids.

On the day of the funeral we dropped Charlotte off with Dawn. Janet started crying as soon as the hearse arrived. In the church, all four of us wept buckets. Again my mother remained quite stoic. Even a work colleague said 'the children crying are making the rest of us cry', not for mum it didn't.

The next day we went down to the cemetery with the ashes, children and all (and at this point there were 8 grandchildren, although Emma, the eldest, didn't come). Mark had been going to say a few words but instead he wrote it down and we all read it, he thought he would probably break down if he read it aloud. From the cemetery we all then walked one of my dad's favourite walks as a toast to his life.

We seem to appreciate the dead much more than the living. This is certainly true of my father. Since his death, the four of us put him up on a pedestal. Since his death in 2000 I have found out a few shocking things about my father but it's not enough to knock him off the pedestal.


Although Charlotte will never know her Grandfather, fortunately 2 months before he died we had a professional photo of Charlotte done with Gran and Grandad which now takes pride of place in her bedroom.

About 3 months after his death I invited my mother out to stay with me for a week. It became quite clear very quickly that the relationship she had with my father was not all I thought it was. Every time I spoke about him, it would always be a good memory, like how he had always fixed everything, or played with us in the garden. Each time my mother would counteract with something negative to the point it was starting to bother me and decided I would mention it to her the next time she did it. She did it again and I pointed out to her that every time she spoke about dad it was always in a negative way. Her response to this was that the way we all spoke about dad you'd think he was some kind of saint and had we all forgotten all the things she'd done for us. I was shocked at her outburst and accused her of being jealous of a dead man. The rest of the day was practically spent in silence.

The next morning, when my mother came downstairs for breakfast, the first thing she said was 'why shouldn't I say anything bad about your father, it's not as if he never said anything bad about me'. I was shocked and to be quite honest I lost respect for her this day. My response to this question was 'because he's dead and you don't bad mouth your childrens' father.'

Cutting what could be a very long story short, reactions and conversations that I have had since my father's death with my mother, have lead me to the conclusion that at the end, my mother didn't really love my father very much. Certainly she is jealous of him and I now steer clear of talking about him with her, which is a shame.