i wish
to meet my father
![to meet my father](https://i0.wp.com/houseoflovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/HoL-H2O-dad-lake.jpg?fit=1536%2C2048&ssl=1)
I’m going into the difficult embrace of family life to say goodbye to my father. Our family relationships have been fraught with miscommunications, outbreaks of insanity, and violence. Now it’s all coming to an end and we will have to, I hope, focus on our common humanity.
My mother says, you’ll find him much changed.
I’ve barely spoken to Dad since his cancer swelled and got into his bones. It has taken him over only slowly. The oncologist gives him so and so many months still to live. Meanwhile the effects of the stroke a decade ago slow his walking and, sometimes, his concentration and that makes it harder for his body to cope with the disease. What will kill him, it seems, is one in the string of pneumonias and influenzas that have infested him since he’s been in and out of hospital. An iatrogenic death: caused by the healer.
Dad is so generous and has faithfully tried to be a good father to us. In recent years he has taught himself, probably at my brother’s prompting, to say, awkwardly, “I’m very proud of you.” On the rare occasions when I speak to him over the phone he says, every time, “I love you, pet.” He never used to say this. If I said, “I love you,” he would say, “I love me, too.”
I find these feats of compassion to be particularly moving as his own father leapt from a bridge when Dad was only twelve. His brother was ten and their baby brother three weeks old. Sometimes people’s opportunities to learn parenting skills are so cruelly limited.
On Saturday I will fly out to Frankfurt, and then to Bangkok. This was an innovation we cooked up because I need to turn up healthy and strong and not be one more member of an unwell household ailing and needing care. When I first flew to Berlin the thirty hours’ travel left me trembling and unable to rest, I was swimming uphill, underwater, and though I was sick with hunger trying to eat made me vomit.
The thought of leaving Berlin as the hot weather finally unfolds, and of flying in to Brisbane where winter arrives in inverted commas, fatigues me more than I can say. I have just gotten settled and it’s taken me 18 months. I’m so slow to adapt. Parts of me stay behind, or perhaps travel by the old seaways. I have looked up the forecast for Brisbane and it’s planning to be blue, beautiful one day, perfect the next. Mum says, “There’s a cold front coming, in Tenterfield they’re predicting snow.” The weather channels show rows of cheerful whole suns, and temperatures similar to Berlin in the Spring. So I guess I’ll be wearing the same clobber I’ve been wearing these last sweeter months.
In Berlin now Spanish tourists are beginning to cycle past in the street bare-chested. Girls come out in their fluttering dresses, like pennants; there’s a fashion for unpleasant prints. All the tattoos are on display and we’ve seen the first way too stoned person of the season, sitting on a bench under an invisible sack of cement, their eyes so round and so sore it looked as though someone had drawn in cartoon rings.
My father’s muscle tone is so deteriorated he finds it difficult to swallow. He has to eat sitting forward, with supervision and great care. So I have chosen out for him all the disgusting comestibles he loves, in the softest forms possible: raw meats, and potted intimate organs, all the indelible edibles with which shelves in a German deli seem to me literally to groan. I’m going to make him builders’ marmalade for breakfast, which is Metz – raw pig mince – mashed with raw onion and served on bread. I’m going to tempt him with Sülze, a kind of jelly quivering with the flesh of a pig’s head and sundry choppings of gherkin and carrot.
As well as the pulverised raw meats in glass I have a light jumper, four fresh new blank notebooks and a jar of ink, six books to read, and my sunglasses for crying in public places. I have all my old familiar fears and they’re heavier than anything. I have visions of our plane catching fire in the engine and plummeting out of the sky, extinguishing in the giant ocean, coming to rest in the plastic-loamed sand. I pray that an accident won’t happen. I pray Dad will be there when I get to the house, for there is no one now well enough to come pick me up, and I’m planning to call him and tell him so. It’s hard to say goodbye but it would feel even worse never to say it at all. To say: fare thee well and thank you. I will honour your name. I will never waste the kindness you showed. I have loved all the love.
>> best wishes from berlin!
Danke lieber Martin. Ich fliege am Samstag. Nehme deine liebhafte Wünsche mit dabei.
xx
thank you xx
Much love xx
Thank you, Anthea. I keep thinking of you lately xx
‘I love you, pet’. Oh, Cathoel — take all our hearts with you into the love-loamed skies xxx
So very moving! thank you, Hinemoana xxx
. ????
x
Thinking of you xx
Thank you, Jameela xx
Miss u Cathoel, sending love on your journey and looking forward to seeing you upon your return to Berlin. xx
I was just thinking of you today! Thanks Susanne, also bis mitte Juli, oder? xx
I’ll be away then, but back in time for Der Versuch, hope to see you then, we’ll go on another street tour, like last year ????
Good luck from us, Tuffy included!
Naw, thanks you sweet New Yorkers. Fanks Tuffy. Rruff.
Love to you during this difficult time. Xx
Thanks very much, Cathy. Xx
I wish you well through this process of farewell xx
Thank you for thinking of us, Carmen xx
So many feelings, so much to bear. Good luck!
It’s true! Thanks so much, Vira
It’s a hard time Cathoel. Just coming up on the first anniversary of my dads death. That too was at the end of about 5 years of chronic illness & the shock of him not dodging the bullet (after so many successful attempts) made it doubly hard.
Travel safe
Oh, Charles that sounds so painful. And if you weren’t ready. Then the feeling goes on and on. But are we ever ready? I’m so sorry you lost your Dad and very sorry he suffered for so long.
Thank you.
Lots of love and comfort to you, my friend. It will be hard, but every now and then, close your eyes and think about all of us who are with you, in heart if not in presence, and our love for you.
Your generous heart. Thank you Brendan. Will be nice to be nearer. X
♥️ Strength and Love.
Thank you Isobel.
Take your compass. PS It’s not cold, relatively. Smooth travelsX
Ah, thank you, Sue, that is exactly what I needed to hear. I’ll pack for the light. Compass, grounding advice, merci tres bienX
Cathoel Jorss I meant to say, like so many have — my sympathy goes out to you in these hard, family times. X
Oh, Sue, I knew you meant that. Thanks for these generous wishes. Yours encompassed them ^_^ XX
I need to come up and see everyone also. Let me know when you arrive pls. ????
Hi Bek, I am arriving middle of Tuesday, would love to see you as would everyone else no doubt, just lovedelovelovelove. I’ll get in touch X
Stephen Cummings liked this on Facebook.
I can totally relate Cathoel……you are a strong Lady and I know ….you will cope ……..Love and PEACE !
Thanks, Erna. I appreciate your loving wishes. Cx
Thinking of you and sending strength – so many lessons in life for us all, hey?Keep in touch. XXX
Ain’t that the truth and nothing but the truth. Thanks Margosha XxX
Thank you Margosha, and yes, it’s so true. I appreciate your well-wishes. Xx
Sending you much love xxxooo
Konstantina. Thank you. xxxooo
Thank you Konstantina xxXxx
Sending you strength and love.
I’ll put ’em to good use. Thank you Cynthia.
Thanks, Cynthia.
Carry love and comfort dear Cathoel. Your shoulders were built for this meeting xx oo ????
That’s a really kind and encouraging wish, thank you indeed, James. xxoo
Cathoel, love to you. I’m visiting Brisbane for the next 2 weeks and seeing my parents also who are becoming frail. And it’s difficult. I very much relate. I’m glad to know you are nearby for a little time. I’m not looking forward to what’s coming with this and I appreciate as always your reflections
hugs Cathoel
thanks lovely Soph
Wishing you safe travels, and enough time and courage enough. Thoughts with your family.
Thank you bella, I am grateful for your loving thoughts.
Poignant. So sorry; wishing you a safe and meaningful journey. It all sounds so healthy to me.
If anyone can do this well & find a spacious heart for the moment you can C. Fragile tender times, you will be held.
Thanks for this luminous comment, Severin. It’s very generous and I feel it deeply.
❤️
Strength and love to you.
I hope it all goes as well as possible.
Safe travels to you, and peaceful last journey to your father.
❤️
Thank you so much, Deborah, these are beautiful wishes. It’s generous of you to offer them. ????
Thinking of you all. xxx
Cathoel, what a menage of emotions: so glad you could make it home, so sad it had to be for this, but you have limitless love and understanding. 14 years after his own slow exit I still thank the wry sense of humour that helped my father through, feel sorrow that I took that long to understand him, but thankful that I finally did. So here’s love and some sort of understanding to you, from one who’s still learning.
Wishing you all the best for this… X
This is very beautiful, very moving…
❤️ Thank you, Phillip