My father died on this day 49 years ago, three days short of his 57th birthday.
He finished the day's work, closed the shop and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He put the kettle on, and before it boiled he was dead. As simple as that.
Is it odd to remember something like this over so many lost years ?
He had had a hard time. His father, who always lived with us (actually I only discovered later that we were living with him), had died three months earlier, and my mum was already ill with the cancer that ended her life two years later. Yes, he was stressed, and still working an 80 hour week.
At the time, I was living in Beeston. There were no mobiles, and I had no landline. About 0200 a policeman came round to knock on the door and wake me up. He gave me the news, and left me this note:
My dad was a lovely bloke. Uncomplaining, placid, unflappable, stable. He had lost an arm to polio when he was 4 years old but had not let that stop him doing the things he wanted to do.
It is only relatively recently that I lost the ability to hear his voice in my head. It finally slipped away all unnoticed and I just can't hear it, the rhythm, the timbre, the chuckle.
This afternoon, sitting in the garden during the lock-down sunshine, I thought again that if he were to see me now, he would not recognise me. No longer 20, and much older than he was when he died, I would be a stranger.
But I would recognise him. Oh yes, I'd recognise him.
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