ade
13-02-09, 15:18
my dad was a violent alcoholic,but i must make it very clear he was not one of the men who raped me.i am writing this to try and make sense of a huge sense of contradiction about him. some catholic men use one of their children as a 'confessor'.in other words i would get to hear truths that no one else would,giving me a deep insight into the man.
he was a racist and often used racist language.yet,to me ,he would weep openly at the first images of famine in the early 1970s.'why cant they feed the little darlings' (refering to the african children,bellys swollen with hunger)
he was an imperialist,lamenting our lost empire.yet during the falklands war 1982 he broke down at the bombing of a ship and then graphically detailed the first time he had killed as a soldier,i wont even describe what he said.
it was harrowing stuff.
now dad died in 1990.i still dont know if he loved me,in life he neverever said.yet when he was crippled with cancer and dying.i pushed his wheelchair around the grounds of the hospice in beautiful may sunshine.he said nothing and just stared at a pine cone i picked up for him.yet when i had gone he tearfully told mum that i had been the gentlest person who cradled him in his pain,better than the nurses .he said.He never said a nice word about mum,then in the last few days clung to her like a child 'i cant be without her '
he had gone from being the ogreous violent misogynist,to being a broken child,a hurt kindly child of a man and this breaks my heart,because i want to know WHO HURT HIM....and i want to be his dad,to cradle him to love and cherish him and take away all the horrible guilt that contributed to his demeanour.i want to get the priests who made him scrub the monastery stone steps with a toothbrush,and scream at them.its as if when he died all the layers fell away and we were left with a tiny innocent child.that grief still haunts me.i want to get the *******s who got him.
he never did buy me those football boots i hoped for every night when the car pulled in,but i love him dearly
ade in sorrow:weep:
he was a racist and often used racist language.yet,to me ,he would weep openly at the first images of famine in the early 1970s.'why cant they feed the little darlings' (refering to the african children,bellys swollen with hunger)
he was an imperialist,lamenting our lost empire.yet during the falklands war 1982 he broke down at the bombing of a ship and then graphically detailed the first time he had killed as a soldier,i wont even describe what he said.
it was harrowing stuff.
now dad died in 1990.i still dont know if he loved me,in life he neverever said.yet when he was crippled with cancer and dying.i pushed his wheelchair around the grounds of the hospice in beautiful may sunshine.he said nothing and just stared at a pine cone i picked up for him.yet when i had gone he tearfully told mum that i had been the gentlest person who cradled him in his pain,better than the nurses .he said.He never said a nice word about mum,then in the last few days clung to her like a child 'i cant be without her '
he had gone from being the ogreous violent misogynist,to being a broken child,a hurt kindly child of a man and this breaks my heart,because i want to know WHO HURT HIM....and i want to be his dad,to cradle him to love and cherish him and take away all the horrible guilt that contributed to his demeanour.i want to get the priests who made him scrub the monastery stone steps with a toothbrush,and scream at them.its as if when he died all the layers fell away and we were left with a tiny innocent child.that grief still haunts me.i want to get the *******s who got him.
he never did buy me those football boots i hoped for every night when the car pulled in,but i love him dearly
ade in sorrow:weep: