Cut free
I was banned from my father’s funeral.
“When I tell people my dad died, their first instinct is to say ‘I’m sorry’. Please, don’t apologise.”
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
Ben didn’t have a great relationship with his dad.
“My earliest memory is at the side of a swimming pool in Spain. My dad stood in the water promising he was right there to catch me but deliberately let me fall to force me to swim. Now I have a fear of water and I still can’t swim.
“The last time I saw him was seven years ago; he happened to call me – a rarity – and asked me to go round with the kids. We chatted for about 20 minutes, the kids played on their devices and he put the football on. We sat largely in silence for another hour. I wondered at what point I could leave without feeling rude.
“It’s a good example of how our relationship was for years and years. Every birthday, I’d wait all day for a call and it’d be gone 11 at night by the time he rang. He’d pretend it was because he wanted to be the last person to speak to me but I came to understand he’d been at the pub all evening and my stepmum would’ve nagged him to call when he got back.
“It’s not that he was a bad dad, he just wasn’t a dad. I can’t hate him, I just wish I had a better one.”
About five years ago, Ben looked at his life and realised something needed to change.
“That pattern of behaviour chips away at you. I’d spent 34 years of my life being chipped away at and I didn’t want that for myself any more. I thought about the weight I put on our relationship and asked, ‘what value does he bring to my life?’. It’s a harsh uncompromising question to ask but it reveals a lot.
“I decided I wasn’t going to be the sole active person in our relationship. I wouldn’t continue to be the first person to call or message. I get my stubbornness from my dad’s side of the family. He’d never have thought about the impact of his actions. Or if he did, he’d have found a way to blame someone else.
“I’m sad for him because he didn’t just lose me but his brilliant grandchildren too – and that’s a choice he made.”
Out of the blue, Ben got a 3am call from a cousin saying his dad had been hospitalised after suffering a stroke.
“They told me there was a chance he wouldn’t make it and I should go to see him. I was on my own with the kids, I didn’t want to wake them with a dramatic late-night hospital visit and I just didn’t know how I felt about it.
“After a lot of dialogue over a couple of weeks, they told me they were going to pull the plug and it was my last chance to come and see him. I wrestled with it, truly, but I knew I wouldn’t be doing it for him or for me.
“It would have been a performative act for the sake of my cousins, aunt and uncle; I wouldn’t have got any meaning or understanding for the way I’d been treated so there was no reason for me to go.”
Following that decision, Ben’s father’s family cut him out of the funeral.
“I bet my dad was a fantastic uncle; he was always the life and soul of the party, he’d have a few drinks, say a few choice words and everyone would have a great time. That’s fine as an uncle: you need and want more in a dad.
“I got no sleep the night they told me: it was horrible. Regardless of what had happened, I wanted to go, it was the right thing to do. As much as I understand where they were coming from, I could never imagine telling someone they couldn’t go to their own father’s funeral. It’s appalling. I still struggle to get my head around it.
“I went to see a therapist for a few months after that. They said my depressive experiences are event-related; something happens and it’s a trigger for me to be affected by that and enter into a depressive state.
“It wasn’t even the death of my father or his family’s reaction to my non-behaviour towards his death that got to me. I was bullied at school and being cut out felt like that all over again. It brought back memories of how I felt day in, day out: shit, worthless and unwanted.
“I’ve learned how to be a good dad in spite of my father. I also know there’s so much I could do better. But showing your children you love them is simple: it’s about checking in regularly, telling them you’re thinking about them and creating memories.”
Would Ben have asked his father for anything when he knew he was ill?
“As a child you expect your parents to lead the way. If he’d been in a more cognitive state, I’d have liked an acknowledgement or an understanding from him of how he made me feel and the lasting effects he’s had on my life for the worse. But you’d have to be an absolute cunt to do that on someone’s deathbed. That’s a shit horrible thing to do.
“If I’d gone back five years ago and had that conversation, would it have helped? He’s too stubborn a man to admit any part of it. When I cut him out of my life, I knew I’d never get the resolution I wanted and I made my peace with that. It was an exercise in self-protection.
“A half presence in your child’s life is not enough and you need more than a blind belief that blood’s thicker than water. We all need to feel accepted, loved and wanted.”
You have captured exactly how I feel Elle. X