Mum was good, she was about the same as when I saw her in April, which is good because I was expecting to see some more decline in her!
So few words left it's impossible to understand a damn thing she is trying to say, altho I'm sure she makes sense to herself, you have to watch her face when she finishes a sentence and go from the inflection of her tone and whether she looks amused or not, before you can respond with a "no way! surely not!" or something similar, but she is still very able to laugh and be happy and that's the main thing.
I got home to a few missed calls and a text on my other phone from a mate of my dads. I called him the next day and found out that dad had died on Sunday night. The end of an era....
My dad was an asshole. A wife beater, a child abuser (in more than one sense of the word) and we were ALL glad to be rid of him when I was 15 and mum finally had enough back up in us kids to chuck him out.
I had shifted in the police to Golden Bay in 1998 and my dad got wind of it, rang the Takaka Police, said who he was and that I was his daughter and could he have my phone number. Huge no no for info like that to be given out to ANYONE, but the cop working at the time gave him my number and that is how my father got in contact with me again.
Funny thing is, his phone call to me came only a day or so after a phone call to my older brother where we had talked about him and our childhood and the shit that went down and he said he had come to realise that his "family" was mum and me and Cammy (brother) and that was it. "He" was just a stranger. Obviously that came at the perfect time (great believer in "everything for a reason" because when a couple of days later I picked up the phone and recognised the voice on the other end of it, I didn't have a heart attack, but after the initial "holy shit he found me!!!!" I realised Slade (brother) was right... this man on the other end of the phone was not family to me, he was just a stranger wanting to talk, and that was the final stage of me making peace with my past.
Dad kept in contact over the years and after Marcus was born he visited twice, the last time when Marcus was about 3 or 4, and he rang to keep up with what was happening, and he always sent birthday and Xmas cards and presents for Marcus which was always appreciated. But at the same time, as harsh as it may sound, his death is no great loss for us as a family.
I've talked to him since I heard the news, he thinks its rather funny that he can talk to me more now than when he was alive, and I know that as spirit energy he is no longer the asshole that my dad was, but have told him to just give me a bit of time to now separate the 2 things in my head before he tries to start advising from that side, cause him butting into things going on in my life like he had the right to over the last 10 or so years used to bug the shit out of me and there were a couple of short sharp conversations when he would try!
I'm glad mum has outlived him, even if she's in no fit state to appreciate it....
And bonus of a windy day back at work, where there isn't too much we can do I got to put some fertiliser on MY paddock tonight!!! Just as the grass is thinking about having a sprout, great timing :)
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