My turbulent relationship with blogging continues yet I’ve done so much recently. April was a really busy month and also marked the end of the first year without my Dad.
What a year it’s been since he moved on:
* I’ve been to Germany twice, Italy, France, Belgium, USA and Canada
* Followed Newcastle United around the country watching about 10 games this season, 3 of which were at St James’s Park
* Seen a Grand Prix live at Hockenheimring
* Completed a 26.3 mile walking marathon overnight in Manchester and a 10 mile hike across Hadrians Wall in memory of my Dad
* Driven a steam train, dined in a Pullman coach and travelled on a light railway
* Taken over as carer for my Grandad
* Almost completed an Estate as executor
* Been to the Opera
* Shot a rifle
* Driven at 130 mph (ssshhhh, in Germany)
* Seen Niagra Falls, Ground Zero, Empire State, Cape Cod
* Watched Baseball live
* Seen Ben Folds, Kate Walsh, Emily Baker, Jamiroquai, London Symphony Orchestra, John Mayer
* Gotten to know my sister
* Eaten in Michelin Star restaurants and The Pudding Club
* Bought some new stuff
* Inherited some old stuff
* Spent some wonderful times with amazing friends and colleagues
* Watched several important people in my life get married
* Grown up a lot and come to peace with many many things
* Celebrated and mourned
* Been thankful every day for those closest to me that I love
* Forgotten at least 50% of what I actually have done in the last year……
There are so many things I’ve done, thought, felt and experienced that I can’t remember to put in this but I can safely say that April 2010-April 2011 was a landmark year and brought into perspective much of the last 33 years of life in a way I could never have predicted.
I realise now, writing a diary would have been useful. I could have captured so much of the year to look back on now and see the progress made. However, in a strange way, I’m glad that I didn’t. I’m glad that the people who were part of the year, experienced it first hand and shared the time with me doing the variety of different things that made it go so quickly but at the same time made it a year worth living through, will remember it in their own way and later remind me of things that have passed.
In a few weeks time, I will play for Newcastle United at St James’s Park with my brother in a charity match. My Dad would have been so proud. Following that, I will travel to America to see the final Space Shuttle launch from Cape Kennedy. Again, he’d have loved it.
But above all the things this year has provided, it has been the overwhelming sense of relief that the suffering, antagonism, sadness, trial and tribulation of the last years of my Dad’s life never eclipsed the best of him and that I’ve found the best of him in me and continue to work hard to relieve myself of the experiences that eclipsed those things and made it hard to live with the reality of what I’d grown up through.
It’s taken me a year to write a set of lyrics inspired by all this that I feel adequately match my expectations. I’ve done it previously when I lost my Grandmother and also wrote for some to encapsulate my feelings around my brother John who I lost very young.
The lyrics below tie up a loose end and I think reflect the least number of words necessary to express my sentiment as I close off the year in my mind and start to look forwards.
I found a simple truth throughout all of this: the mysteries in life are worth pursuing, both within you and without you.
Father
There is a moment
Where you know that you’re lost.
When life just engulfs you,
Your memories embossed.
And through recollection,
It’s time to move on.
A time for reflection,
For those who have gone.
I wish I had listened,
To all that you’d said,
Now I’m left with what feels like
A hole in the head.
And there are a million things
I wish we’d done,
But God I’m so grateful that
You were the father to this son.
There is a moment.
You know things have past,
You know that the love you have,
Was built to last.
And through recollection,
The pain drifts away,
A true reconnection,
With happier days.
I wish I had listened,
To all that you’d said,
Now I’m left with what feels like,
A hole in the head.
And there are a million things
I wish we had done,
But God I’m so grateful that
You were the father to this son.
Until the next time I blog, I’ll do my best to fill the space in between with something worth writing home about.
