It occurred to me during a recent life altering discussion with The Body, a friend who is equal in both stature and beauty to Elle Macpherson to whom this anon-name was originally attributed, that despite many references to the man known to many during his living life as that Effing Aquarian, I have never told you directly of the man who in my monologues upon these pages I refer to as myfatherininvertedcommas.
myfatherininvertedcommas
Born in post war England in 1948, in Royal Leamington Spa, Dad, like that other far more notorious Beatles fan, Steve Jobs, who was only 5 days shy of being an Aquarian himself and of course not born in England, succumbed to cancer before he reached his sixtieth year*. They shared a passion for perfection, agelessness and an insatiable enthusiasm for John, Paul and all that is, was and ever will be, The Beatles.
My father died at 9pm AEDT on Wednesday the 8th of February 2006, 7 days after he turned 58 and exactly the same moment as Hugh Laurie’s Dr. House was resuscitating a bacteria infested patient, a patient who survived… while Dad did not.
Being, as he was, such an unadulterated fan of John, Paul, George and Ringo, hiding him away in the vortices of my brain’s oubliette is somewhat difficult. You are reminded of him on an almost daily basis. He was a fan, and spoke to us using the lyrics of the most famous pop group of all time. There is not a week goes by I am not subject to the melodies of The Beatles. I imagine it will be just as hard for anyone who ever tries to forget me. It will be hard to push me into the recesses of the subconscious given my singular and life-long passion for Madonna.
Tip from me…if you choose to become obsessive about music, choose someone under the radar, your kids will be a little less insane.
Katoomba, NSW, AUS ~1990
I orated the eulogy, one of three, at my father’s funeral. It began, “I read the news today old boy, about a lucky man who made the grade”. I felt then, as I do today, that it was appropriate to sign the man off to the lyrics of that same man who he regarded so highly while he lived, John Lennon. He would often cite the antinomy of Lennon and McCartney as expressed in Getting Better. Paul who wrote “it’s getting better all the time” Lennon who added to the chorus “it can’t get no worse”. Quintessentially English, glass half empty that was how he saw the world.
I remember seeing my father cry only three times. The Smartarse, The Art-sist-ologer and Motherbear, will query this point. I remember him crying when he learned John Lennon had been shot, when he got the call advising him that his brother had died and during one of our last conversations when he told me, on one of only a handful of morphine-induced occasions, that he loved me. Dad, a stiff-upper-lipped Englishman, rather than using his own words, preferred to use the words of Paul and John during moments of trying, unhinged emotion.
There are myriad examples, etched into the memorial bark of our family tree. She’s Leaving Home when I left for to France, Happy Birthday for every single one of our birthdays, Good Night to force us unwillingly into bed and most memorably, Happy Christmas (War is Over) every year as we woke, on Christmas morning, to discover what Santa had left in our pillowcases+. John and Paul were that much more able to say what he never could.
Myfatherininvertedcommas is referred to as such because he was indeed the Y chromosome that mixed with Motherbear’s Xes to create the puffy cheeked blue-eyed baby that became M. Take note mathematicians, X+Y = M. He was my father and he allowed me to become the woman that I am today, but equally the woman that I am not.
He loved music.
The Beatles, Elton John, Sting and Phil Collins were his favourites, and he never strayed far from his British pop origins. In his eyes, no one could make better music than a POM. Unqualified family myths suggest that he played trumpet with Mick Fleetwood during the early days of Fleetwood Mac in the Midlands of England. All that rests of that story today is the trumpet holed up in someone’s garage, a trumpet that like him, has no more breath to breathe.
He loved Humour.
The Goodies, The Two Ronnie’s, Monty Python, Benny Hill and the Kenny Everett Show. We were raised on the dubious cross-dressing jokes of 1960’s England. A bevy of comedians with whom he would only allow passing assimilation with the ‘Canadians’ John Candy, Chevy Chase and Steve Martin. We know they are not all Canadians, but he would brook no opposition; you can’t be funny and American.
He taught me to ride a bike, he taught me to hammer a nail, he taught me how to cook chips in the proper English way and he taught me how to “cut in” when you are painting a wall. He was a carpenter. A profession, that like Jesus, as he would say, took his life.
Asbestos is the miraculous substance that kept us equally cold and warm in our newly built Australian bungalows in the 70’s and the miraculous substance that would take his life at 6 years shy of Paul McCartney’s lyrical when-I’m-64.
If you believe, He moves in mysterious ways.
Dad dying all too soon afforded me the opportunity to travel, afforded me the opportunity to see another, rather more garlicky side of this life and an opportunity to know that you only live once. That you should take advantage of every day and appreciate that which you have.
He died British, and so will my children (if ever I have them). He died a fan of the Beatles and so will I. He died a stubborn insubordinate s**t who can’t be told otherwise and so will I. He died with a fair bit more than an index finger between his eyebrow and his hairline… and so will I.
And in the end, the love we make, is equal to the love, we take.
* For a musical reference check this out. It is truly worth it to have patience and stay with it through the tuning of the orchestra.. and Dad was actually there with Motherbear and UPAD in 1986
+ In the southern hemisphere, there are no chimneys, so Santa has a magical Key that let’s him into all of the houses. He then deposits the presents into the pillowcases of the children, you with me?
Beautiful, this story, your writing, you and your father.
Love and prayers, from your funny and American friend.
Posted by: ZiP! | 10/24/2011 at 12:09 AM