It’s been getting on for 30 years since I said my final farewell to my father, my last words to him were very simple, “I love you”.
I miss him every day.
No. That’s wrong.
I don’t miss him because he is with me every day.
This weekend I found he is with me more than I could have ever realised.
When I was a little boy family members who knew my father at that age used to say how much I looked like him. I couldn’t understand at the time how that was possible. He was twice as big as me and he had a moustache.
Over the years our appearances changed as we both grew older.
When his time came he was no longer the big boisterous father I had known throughout my childhood and teens. He wasn’t the somewhat older, but still boisterous father I had always been able to rely on for good advice and as helping hand when I needed it once I became a man.
Since he has gone I could still see him if I looked carefully in a mirror.
The older I got the more of his face and mannerisms I could see.
The point is that I could still see me there, I could also see my mother, just as when we three siblings meet again after long gaps I could see her in my sister and, in a strange way, in my brother.
Then the other day I was checking the memory card from my garden camera and running through the stills and images that had been taken from the previous day.
As I watched I suddenly saw my father in our garden.
Not a ghostly image, or a grainy evening, gloomy image.
This was mid-afternoon with plenty of light to show off the images.
He walked down the path and into the garage workshop, close to the wildlife feeding area. In the next video clip he came out of the garage and walked towards the camera, at which point the figure became me.
I must have gasped because Marion asked me what was wrong.
I told her as I showed her the video clip.
“That’s Dad,” I said.
“Everything about him, I mean me, in fact I’m not sure what I mean.”
“Of course it’s your Dad,” she said. “I’ve always seen him there.”
The point is I rarely see video of me. Ordinary family snaps yes but most of the time I have been the one taking them.
In this I was observing a figure in the background whose back bent slightly from waist to neck and whose head was slightly tilted forward. He leant slightly on a walking stick.
It was definitely my father.
I suppose just as Marion had always seen the two-in-one I had always seen him in my face, and felt his presence.
This does not mean I do not see my mother when I look in a mirror, or even at times my older brother. But at all times I am definitely my father’s son.
Robin's Nest 