Twelve months ago today my father passed away.
Anniversaries are a strange thing, they are more personal than a birthday.
I feel like wedding anniversaries are something for a couple to celebrate.
When it comes to anniversaries of death it's not something you can share, even with family somehow. You're each carrying your own memories and your feelings vary.
Anyway, I want to talk about my Dad.
He wasn't just Dad to me, but his first two children were with his first wife, so I had a different Mum. We all had different relationships with him, but I think that's likely the norm in a family. Each child has different personalities and interactions with parents are bound to vary.
So, my Dad.
I was never in any doubt that he loved me.
There wasn't a moment when I wasn't absolutely sure of that love.
He always had my back. I don't wonder if, even if I was in the wrong, he wouldn't have supported me anyway. It was so nice to know that I could tell him something, and he'd join in telling me what bastards everyone else was. Even if it wasn't true, I knew he'd just take my side, and my goodness you need that in your life sometimes.
My earliest memories are of being collected from my Mum's house on a Friday evening, I'd be wrapped in a blanket and laid in the back seat, then taken to Dad's house for the weekend. He'd take me back to Mum's house on Sunday evening, before heading off to go dancing.
He loved to dance, winning competitions in his youth. He loved the quickstep and my aunt spoke at the funeral of how they wore a hole in their lounge carpet jiving together when their parents went out.
Back in 1998 my Dad had a heart attack, on my birthday, which resulted in a quadruple heart bypass. It was a terrible event that ended up having a really positive effect on his life. He joined the ramblers as a way to exercise and recuperate from the surgery, slowly building up the length of the walks he went on. He did the Three Peaks challenge multiple times and just loved being out walking and he built a wonderful community of friends. It's amazing how a negative can turn into such a positive.
Ten years after that bypass he had a replacement stent and was still going strong, but as the years wore on, he became more frail and unsteady on his feet. He had multiple falls and we decided he should make the move from his lovely flat into a bungalow closer to my home.
My family go away for Christmas every year. We rent a cottage somewhere in England for a week, it works really well because we are live quite far apart and it also means that no-one has to host everyone else for a week. In 2013 we went away for Christmas as usual, staying near Worcester, and during the night, Dad got up to use the bathroom and in his sleepy state, he forgot he wasn't at home and turned left out of his bedroom. At his bungalow, a left turn headed towards the bathroom.
At the cottage a left turn was a steep staircase. A dogleg staircase. Dad hit the bend in the wall with such force he punched a hole in the wall, before falling further and landing at the bottom of the stairs. Mum heard him call out and came to wake me. The bump on his head was huge. I held a towel to his head to stem the bleeding, but I could only cup the bump, it was like holding a lemon in your hand.
I went with him as he was rushed to hospital. I told them to make sure he knew I was there.
Dad always responded better in hosptial if he knew I was there, he and I had done multiple hospital trips already. I sat in the relatives room for what felt like an eternity. Eventually I managed to get an update and they said they'd been struggling with him, I repeated what I'd said on our arrival, just let me see him, he'll be reassured and easier to treat. Just a few seconds I pleaded. They let me in and I saw the complete relief on his face, I told him I'd be there each and every time he needed me and I wasn't going anywhere.
On Christmas Day, I went to visit and he was unresponsive. On that day I thought I was going to lose him. He wasn't responding to pain stimuli and it was terrifying.
I'm sorry about how awful this photo is.
Our week at the cottage over, I had returned home but was driving from home to Worcester regularly to visit.
Then I got word he would need brain surgery and would be moving to Stoke-on-Trent for the specialist surgery. The surgery went well and after a while he was moved to Lincoln, our local hospital.
When he was finally ready for discharge it was decided he would spend some time in a nursing home before returning to his bungalow.
The least said about that place the better, I'd been round to view and thought it was fine.
It wasn't.
I got him home to his bungalow, he had carers visit three times a day and I would go every day. We soon realised though that he simply wasn't managing. After another fall we realised it was time to consider something else. I got him moved into a lovely nursing home and started trying to get him to adjust to this new life.
Life following traumatic brain injuries is not always easy. He was clearly changed. The nursing home would call me, unable to handle him and I'd go to sit with him.
The management changed at the home. The new manager was an evil woman and I soon was forced to find a new home to move him to, and that's where he saw out the rest of his life.
They were great with him, I expected he would pass away before the year was out, but their care was so good I got years extra with him.
On his last admission to hospital I took this photo. Seems a bit random, but bear with me.
On that desk is a pile of paper, it reaches almost to the counter.
That entire pile makes up my Dad's medical records. He had a lot of health problems his entire life. It never stopped him though.
And here he is, the last time I saw him.
This was a little over twelve hours before he passed away.
He'd pushed his oxygen mask up to his forehead so he could eat some dinner. He'd turned to me, grinned and said "do you like my hat?"
I really chuckled.
He also asked me if he had a girlfriend. I'd replied that what he did in his private life was none of my business, knowing full well that he didn't have a girlfriend. He considered it for a moment and said "well, I'm nearly 80 and women are a lot of trouble, so I probably don't need the hassle".
He also pronounced the food was "shit", so he was on form.
I left the hospital feeling upbeat, but that evening I went for dinner with my Mum and Step-dad and Mum asked me how he was. I replied that I didn't know. Despite the fact he'd been chipper and in good humour, I had a weird feeling in my gut that I couldn't and can't explain.
The next morning I got the call that he had passed away.
I am still filled with questions I will never get the answer to.
We had a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order in place for Dad and I questioned whether he'd still be here if it wasn't and should I have fought for him to stay.
Did he know he was dying?
Did he ask for me?
Why wasn't I there?
There are more questions that haunt me, and I try and keep them out of my head, but they remain there. Having answers to the questions wouldn't make the thoughts any easier to bear.
Honestly, I think it's probably normal to wonder if you did the best you could do and if you made the right choices, so I try not to let the thoughts upset me.
In my logical mind I know that the DNR was the right thing, Dad had 'multiple co-morbidities', essentially there wasn't one thing that was a threat to his life, he had so many medical complaints that it was almost impossible to say which was the greatest risk.
His heart was iffy, his lungs were iffy, his kidneys were iffy, his brain was iffy. There was a lot of iffy.
The fact he lived as long as he did is testament to his stubborn refusal to give in.
After that horrendous fall do you know how many bones he broke?
None. Not so much as a little toe.
I thought he was invincible.
(As a humorous aside, following the fall, when the paramedics were sliding the scoop under him and joining the two pieces together so they could get him into the ambulance, he suddenly yelled out. I immediately thought he'd broken his hip or pelvis or something. The paramedics asked him where the pain was. To which Dad simply yelled "you've trapped my bloody foot!" Which they had as they were squeezing the two halves of the scoop together. It brought a bit of humour to a dreadful moment. Well, Dad didn't find it that funny!)
So, that's the end of his life. But what about earlier?
What about the time I drew him a picture, and in order to surprise him with it, I hid it under his duvet. As an adult I realise that hiding the drawing pins to hang the picture was not a good idea and Dad's resulting anger fully understandable. Oops.
Prior to his move to a nursing home I used to take Dad shopping once a week, on one occasion in winter, we were driving the back road and on a sharp bend the ice got the better of me. I immediately felt Jeff (my car) go into a skid and without thinking, I just handled it. I did have enough time for my brain to wonder if I was going to flip the car as off to the side of the single track road was a steep slope and I knew if I lost control, we'd be rollercoastering our way to the bottom. In a matter of a second or two, I got control back of the car and breathed a sigh of relief.
Dad had been silent the whole time and then simply said "Well done" and complimented me on steering into the skid. He hadn't been afraid. He'd just had confidence in my driving.
Many years ago he went with the woman he was in a relationship with, to visit her wheelchair-bound son. When they arrived, they discovered the body of her son, who had been murdered. He never spoke about it and I wonder if it haunted him and I wonder if I should have asked him about it.
More unanswered questions.
My nickname for him was Trouble. I'd say "Hello Trouble" and he'd say "I'm no trouble!"
And then, whenever I got a call that he was in an ambulance on his way to hospital, I'd arrive and when I said hello he'd say "I'm sorry for being a trouble" and in turn I'd say "you're never any trouble to me".
After he passed, I had some of his ashes placed in a memorial heart. It's wooden and it slides open, inside is a little glass vial with the ashes. The top of the heart is engraved. It says "Dad, never any trouble".
He gave me a lot of love and a lot of time, we had holidays in Cornwall that I loved. I still think about a visit to a monkey sanctuary and how much I loved that visit.
He ironed my little finger once. That's what happens when you put your finger on an ironing board whilst your Dad is ironing. It was not a smart move.
He didn't really like tattoos but never really questioned my choice to get tattooed.
I'd turn up to visit with a new shade of scarlet hair and he'd say "you've dyed your hair!" and I'd reply, "nah, I was born this way". "You bloody weren't" he'd also respond.
He had a big smile and he always showed it to me.
He'd protect me with everything he had and I could never do wrong in his eyes. You take that feeling for granted when you have it and you don't realise the security it gives you every day.
I miss him all the time and I berate myself for not taking the opportunity to hear more of his stories and spend time with him whilst he was here. That's life, we know what we've lost when it is gone.
Whenever I left from visiting him I'd call out "Love you" and he'd respond with "Love you", so those are both my last words to him and his last words to me.
That couldn't be more perfect.
Love you.
