Father, dear father

I don’t have much of a relationship with my father.

I haven’t seen or spoken to him in years.

This is not the time or the place to count the ways in which I felt let down by him over the years.

I’ve felt I’ve been at a crossroads with him several times but about three or fours years ago began to realise that I actually had to make a choice – try, really try, to put the past behind me and rebuild – no build – a relationship with him. Or decide that I would not continue throwing my emotional energies into fruitless venture.

I chose the latter path.

Then, earlier this year, one of my siblings informed me that our father is in terminal decline with an illness the clinicians have concluded cannot be operated on due to his old age and frailty.

In conversation with that same sibling yesterday the conversation turned again to my father’s approaching end.

I’ve mused on all of this a lot today. Clearly not the first time I’ve done that.

I have often asked myself how I will feel when my father dies.

Today I began to appreciate the importance to me of that question. And another question came to mind – to what extent has my curiosity about how I will feel, what I will feel, become more important than the compassion I should probably be feeling toward my very ill father.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect that right now it’s become a little too important.