My father…

Writing this post is not exactly easy for me for reasons different to the ones you might expect.

My father died a few days ago and what I feel is void and emptiness. If you expect a lovely childhood photo of my father and myself smiling happily into a camera, I have to disappoint you.

We didn’t have that kind of relationship.

I’m not going into details of the why and how (even though I’d love to) but the fact that we’ve been out of touch for 8 years should speak to itself.

He behaved awfully to direct members of my family and my step mother. Childhood wasn’t a happy story at all… and I best leave it at that.

I think my parents should have divorced when my sister and I were little – everyone would have had a chance to start afresh – but those were the 70s – and divorce was not the done thing.

When I was in my 20s and 30s I run serious risk turning into him by copying his behaviour – needless to say, there’s many an ex-boyfriend I should apologise to!

At some point in my life I decided not to become him and, in a weird reversal of emotions, I’m grateful and thankful to who he was as it showed me who I didn’t want to be.

It all leaves me strangely empty and I wish there was enough feeling and love for him there that I could cry buckets and shout at people because it hurts so much.

But there isn’t.

Just loose beds to tie up… I guess that will have to do.

I got to talk about it all (besides other news stories) on Sunny & Shay’s show on BBC Radio London yesterday, Saturday, July 16th. Here’s the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cgctcq The Timecode you can find on the image below.

I’ll be forever grateful that I’m able to share my story with you!

“Six months later I heard that Karp had died.
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
and cried.
‘Cause I felt
nothing.”

Diana Morales – A CHORUS LINE