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Tempus Fugit - Time is Running Out - wfcom
As I was mowing the lawn I got to thinking about the incident in the garden last week. If the twig had gone into my right eye instead of my left then I would not be writing this article. I would have been blinded by carelessly walking into a branch of a Silver Birch tree. Similarly if last month a car had been coming up the country lane at the same time as the horse on which I was mounted was bolting down it, both rider and horse would be dead. What with a few known defects to my colon, and a leaky prostate it is time I faced the facts of life. The time to do all those things which I might think to do in my life is running out. There are savings in the bank and my wife Jane would encourage me in doing whatever I felt I wanted to do. Maybe it is time for me to reconsider some unfinished business.
It has been five decades since I walked out of the family household with a small suitcase of clothes and a wooden chest of tools, never to return. The relationship between husband and wife had irretrievably broken down. The marriage had been brought about on poor fundamentals and
had collapsed. It did not help that both parties were still in their twenties. The dissolution involved piles of acrid correspondence between solicitors and minimal contact by the antagonists. No doubt it had been better that way and no one had ever disagreed. The confrontational divorce procedure of the era took a typical six years and the separation period followed in this instance of over forty years. Gradually over the decades, the mutual hate had abated and the confrontations had ceased until thirty odd years after my exit from the household at the age of fifty I decided to try to meet again with my sons. Thus a bespeckled bald old man met separately with two young adults. For the first time ever there was to be adult communication between father and sons. There was much news to catch up on but sadly the outcomes of the meetings were very inconclusive. There was no meeting of minds and the yawning chasm between the generations was far too wide to bridge. Not surprisingly the father appeared as a total stranger to his sons and likewise the sons were strangers to the father.
A further twenty three years have passed since that first but unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation. Both sons, Ken and Pete are now mature men in their fifties. Those brief get togethers back in the 1980s did nothing to form relationships and at the time it was mutually agreed to keep the doors closed. Undoubtedly matured bitterness still polluted the atmosphere. What should one have expected to come out of that meeting? Too much water had flowed for too long under the bridge of life.
I had not met with their mother for more than fifty years although I suspected that Katherine was still alive. Not surprisingly there had been a few other men in her life and I had been told that she had a second husband. I often wondered whether any of them had stepped in for a period and taken over the role of father. She would be now in her early seventies and members of her family had been noted for living well unto their nineties. Somewhere in a mislaid file, there was a photo of her holding newly born Peter, surrounded by her mother, her grand mother and her great grandmother. All in all that made a picture of five generations. It would not be surprising if by now there were six live generations of the family.
The photo of Pete’s own daughter, my granddaughter, which I found on the Internet, gave the impression of a pretty and vibrant young woman who was shortly to take her finals at University. By now she would probably have qualified and maybe she was married. Who knows, I might even be a great grand father. Kay was the first female bearing my family’s surname to have been born since the nineteenth century. If Kay were by now a mother and my ex wife Katherine’s mother were still alive in her nineties, then that would make the six generations. No wonder the population of the world has been increasing.
I guessed Pete still lived down in the West Country, which was only a couple of hours drive away from my house. He probably had values similar to his mother’s and was happy to live in the same property for most of his adult life. Out of curiosity I once did a search on the Internet and got the impression from young Kay’s web site that in addition to a daughter, Pete also had a son named Robert, in which case I had at least two grand children. Could that be the same young man introducing himself on the internet as a photographer? He appeared to be old enough to be a family man. I wondered if he had children, in which case I could be a great grandfather, not just once but twice over.
The other branch of the broken family was Pete’s younger brother, Ken. He was probably still living abroad teaching English in a foreign university. He too could be married with kids, indeed he could even be a grand father himself. When I met him briefly twenty three years ago he was certainly a good looking young man. He was the spitting image of my father at the same age and my Dad had himself been a handsome chap as a young man. Unfortunately neither my Dad nor my Mother had ever met this lookalike grandson even as a babe in arms.
Most family orientated folks would find this scenario rather unusual. Only yesterday I had spent an hour or so with a neighbour who had his grandson sitting on his knee. He was so pleased that his son in law had popped in to visit bringing the child to visit. I watched wondering what was giving this grand father so much pleasure despite the fact that the youngster was to my eyes behaving badly. I have not had the experience of youngsters sitting on my lap, so how would I known what was to be expected.
I was certainly not sure that any sudden unannounced visit by me on the family would be well received. One or two members might be wondering if I were still alive, if indeed they thought of me at all. Undoubtedly before knocking on any doors, first I would have to solicit an invitation to visit perhaps by writing to Katherine’s house in London. However I had reason to doubt that she still lived in what had been the family house. I knew that she had remarried but I did not know her new surname. I suppose I could have sent a letter addressed to : ‘Mrs Katherine ??’. Maybe if I enclosed a stamped address envelope, I might get a reply from her even if the language used was a touch vitriolic. In the past she never missed the opportunity to make plain her dismissive attitude towards me.
Alternatively I could take a chance and drive down to where I believed son Pete still lived and knock on his front door. I was not sure if I had the courage for that route. An unannounced meeting between father and son could prove to be embarrassing for both him and myself. He might invite me in for tea, there again he might not. What would I say if Kay, his daughter, or Robert, his son, were to open the door? Maybe I might have recognized Kay from the internet photograph but I should have to ask if a male were Pete’s son and hence my grandson.
Fancy asking one’s own grandson: ‘Who are you?’
What would I say to Pete’s wife, my daughter in law if she were to open the door of her own house? The woman could easily be the cleaning lady.
As I write this note, I can see that it makes no sense to dig up the old bones of a long dead family relationship which expired over half a century ago. Blood is not a glue, it is a sticky red liquid which congeals and goes brown when exposed to air.
Not everyone hankers to know who the long lost relatives were.
What would be the point of making contact?
Would thinking about how both sides in a family breakdown threw away the bond of family be a worthwhile exercise?.
I think not.
Could the breakup of the family have been handled differently? Unlikely.
As it has turned out, Pete as a young boy and as a youth, has never wanted to meet with his father. Maybe he felt that I had deserted him. Perhaps he was right from his point of view. At least his brother Ken was a little curious when as a young adult he on one occasion visited me at my home. For the first time ever we had an exchange of words, although in truth therehad been no rapport. He never tried to visit again.
My first wife Katherine, whose presence haunts me to this day, would no doubt have tried to poison the boy’s attitude towards me if she had the opportunity. But I tried hard not to give her any reason. With my departure she was left a free rein to bring both boys up without interference from me and by doing so I had forfeited my rights to parenthood. Undoubtedly the six years it took back in post war Britain to dissolve a marriage also contaminated any happy early memories of the brief marriage.
Divorce is so much easier to arrange these days. Now husband and wife can split, share out the family capital and go their separate ways. Solicitors don’t get so much opportunity to play the Devil’s Advocate.
Over the intervening years I had deliberately kept my distance and for that reason I was never kept abreast of developments in the family. The contact had been deliberately broken and no attempt was made on either side to keep in touch. As a result I might not even recognize the boys, Pete and Ken, as middle aged men.
So, after further consideration, is the idea of meeting them both a sensible course of action?
Does accumulated curiosity over the years overwhelm any of the facts I have outlined?
I doubt it.
Upon reflection there is no doubt that of late I am being a silly old man who suddenly feels mortal. The clinical psychologist recently said that the reason I am frightened to ride has little to do with the horse but has more to do with the accumulation of a lifetime of fears and bitter memories.
However were we to meet then what would we call each other?
I am no Dad or Grandad. Would I have to think up a nickname for myself?
There are no sons or grand children for me to have played with. There are no memories.
Indeed would they be pleased to meet another Grandad? Perhaps they already have several.
Would they want to stay over in my house?
How would they greet my wife of forty years?
How would she feel about all these ghosts appearing in her house?
So I shall definitely pass on the idea of visiting. After all, those so called relatives don’t even know if I still exist - do they? They themselves have not, to my knowledge, made any attempt to find out. And realistically, all that bitterness lies ready to surface and taint the minds all over again. Why wake up the hob goblins just out of curiosity?
I am not alone. There must be hundreds and thousands of ex-fathers out there.
No, let some future relative find out on the TV programme entitled ‘Who do you think you are’.
I shall be long gone.
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