The Dead Dad Diaries

That’s what I’m doing off-blog, in case you’re wondering. In more ways than one. I’m writing something unlike anything I’ve done before, yes (but of course it always feels like that even if one is condemned to write the same thing over and over for eternity). But also trying to fill in some of the dark stuff which I have both consciously and unconsciously left off this blog. It’s not what you think. You won’t see it here but you may or may not see it somewhere else in another form. Not that we see darkness anyway.

I’m bringing this up because M pointed out that these posts are much less dark than my other writing. It might seem paradoxical that the death of my father should bring out my lighter side. But it’s easier to go excavating in the murky corners when it’s not you, it’s not real. In fact when M emailed me this observation, I was writing a (fictional) scene in which the lights go out (I know I owe a debt to Peter Shaffer and his wonderful Black Comedy on that one). Another spontaneous gift from the random universe, dropped at my feet as a cat would deliver a field mouse.

I have not mentioned Dad at all in this post. I mention him now.

never makes his bed but likes to lie on it

I took a break from posting on this blog to work on a book I’m writing about me and Dad. I took a break from writing that book to work on a play about a woman who’s writing a book about her dead dad (because having a writer as a main character makes for such exciting visuals and dynamic action sequences!). When not even I could get any more meta, I took a break from working on the play to go to the gym. And now I am taking a break from working out to write this on my phone. So here we are, right back where we started.

The combination of a headful of writing,  a bodyful of endorphins and an earful of Mary Gauthier almost made me cry in mid sit-up. I defy anyone who has lost her dad recently to listen to “Mercy Now” and not get wobbly of lip. Yes I reserve the right to define “recent” in this matter at least. As long as I’m still breaking the news to people, that’s recent. Took the car in for a service today and the woman asked if I was Mr. Prior’s granddaughter. Daughter I said. He usually comes in himself she said. He died I said (sorry, I know you‘ve heard this before).  I’m so sorry she said. He was in here all the time. Which when you think about it is not exactly what you want to hear from the people who are supposed to keep your car in good nick, but anyway. The man who gave me a lift remembered Dad once answering the door in nothing but a towel. Bastards didn’t give me a discount though.

Where was I? On the mat with Mary G. Thinking about Dad and mess, messes, messiness: material, emotional. Do we make mess or is it just something that happens while we’re not paying attention? Entropy. They say making the bed in the morning makes you significantly happier. I say unmaking it makes me happiest, under the right circumstances. Question: do we make our beds in the morning because we’re afraid of death? Dad rarely made his bed and I don’t think he was afraid. I shall test my theory on a small but random selection of people in this room. How often do I make my bed? About 80% of the time. Am I afraid of dying? You bet I am. How often does Dr. P make his bed? Never. Does he fear death? Not in the least. QED.

Dad once said (quoting someone else) that what Larkin might more truthfully have written instead of that famous line was: “They Tuck you up, your mum and dad.”

I can still hear him: ‘ Night darling. See you in the morning.

And when I was little I would think: But it’s such a long time till morning, and what if I need you in the night? What shall I do if I wake up and you’re not there?

Answer: get up, make the bed, write a blog, write a book, write a play, exercise, listen to music, cry, repeat.

Relax and shop.

That’s what the screen in the departure lounge tells me to do. I decide to worry (ash cloud, global poverty, did I pack the right shoes) and write instead.

If we humans don’t much like being told what to do (shop) we like being told how to feel (relaxed) even less. On that subject, I just read a good piece in the New York Times about letters of condolence.

Until Dad no one very close to me had died so I didn’t realise that some of my ideas about how to approach the bereaved were a bit, well, screwy. I think I had a vague notion that if someone is in the grip of devastating grief, one little letter from me wasn’t going to make any difference. Not that I never sent them, just that I did it more out of politeness than anything else. I didn’t understand the value of, when you don’t know what to say, at least saying that. I didn’t know how every letter, email, call, or text would make the sadness a little bit easier to bear, and how the ones where people shared a memory or observation in a genuine and unforced way would be cherished. Or how even a friend who never met Dad (though I believe they Skyped) and doesn’t have opposable thumbs would be able to bring a grin to my face:

Even slightly bumbling condolences were welcome and received in the spirit in which they were meant, though I did grit my teeth at times (somehow “he was lonely, though, wasn’t he?” failed to make me feel better). I myself will now never say to someone that a death is a blessing or suggest that it might be a relief or in any way try to point to a silver lining. If there is good death — and maybe it is just that there is less bad death — it is only for the bereaved to know after the fact and perhaps not for a long time. Perhaps never. I am with Woody Allen when asked whether his views on death had changed: “I’m still strongly against it.”

As absorbing as all this was, waiting to board a flight may not be the best time to engage in the extensive contemplation of death. Luckily C appeared out of the blue. One of the perks of Belfast is that if you really live there you can’t go to the airport, or the relevant departure lounges in London airports, without seeing a familiar face. Not really living there it doesn’t always happen to me now and of course this isn’t always a perk anyway. But since C is harder to pin down than a wave upon the sand, or Maria (what was her maiden name?) Von Trapp on speed, I was glad to see him sidling up to me and then to establish that we were on the same flight. It’s always nice to have someone with whom to ridicule the people who buy Ryan-wetaketheFoutofflying-air’s smokeless cigarettes. What I should have realised, having known C for 15 years, is that he is even more of a worrier than me. He turned out to be equipped with so many alarming facts about flight safety that I didn’t know whether to knock him unconscious or send him into the cockpit to fly the bloody thing himself. But then he made up for it all. He told me that he overheard this from a man in Lurgan on the morning after Valentine’s Day: “Barry, my nuts is drained.”

The house is officially on the market as of this afternoon, but with eavesdropping opportunities like that I do have to wonder: how can I even be thinking of leaving tha pravintz?

Baby Roger and Siamese Cat

This photo (forgive the poor quality) I found in Dad’s baby book, which turned up on a shelf behind some dry academic tomes about Elizabethan England. Dad was the first-born so I suspect my grandmother was more diligent about recording Baby Roger’s weight, illnesses, eating habits etc. than by the time she got to child three or four. But that’s not the interesting stuff. Here are a couple of gems.

Under “Funny Sayings:” At 2 years 8 months, “Mummy, behave your little self.”

Under “Hereditary Characteristics (end of first year):” Observant and self-willed. Shows signs of spontaneous affection.

So he was absolutely himself even then.

Another find was a birthday card.

Darling Lydia,

You are 81 18 today! Welcome to the BIG WORLD
(and never vote for a Tory).

Happy Birthday, and lots of love

from Dad.

I have disposed of all of Dad’s work papers, apart from the recent ones I’m keeping with a view to finishing the last article he was writing. One day. When I have emptied the attic and found an estate agent and finished culling the books.

One thing that made me feel less bad about throwing away page upon page of illegible scrawl was carefully adding to the pile of Dad’s publications. All those notes and index cards, they weren’t for nothing. Dad wasn’t great at self-promotion and it took a long time for some his work to be recognised, but it did happen and there is perhaps more to be done. In case you are interested, and to save me the bother of writing about Dad’s research and making a dog’s breakfast of it, here are two links to fairly recent popular articles, one in the Jerusalem Post and one in the Jewish Daily Forward.

I liked the description of Dad as hero, and the idea of him as a kind of latter day Sherlock Holmes. Because that’s really what he was, in his historical research.

It reminded me that when I was nine or ten and still pre-ironic I am supposed to have said, “Daddy will always be my hero.”

I’m sure I would have taken that back hundreds of times over the next eight years, had I been reminded of it. When Dad was doing one of his  little dances in public, or ordering me to load the dishwasher, or entertaining his (much younger) girlfriend and her friends while I was trying to revise for my English A-level. Anyway, hero connotes idols and pedestals,  a degree of distance that seems to have little to do with me and dad. Your hero is not supposed to be the kind of person who speculates about your Latin teacher’s sex life while you both eat supper off your laps. You do not shout at your hero that he is a disgusting pig when you find his toenail clippings in the living room, and your hero does not laugh it off and call you “pig’s child.”

Imaginary Conversation

Me: Dad, you are my hero

Dad: [laughs long and loud] Stop it, Lyd-jah.

Me: This is why we can never be in an American sitcom.

Nevertheless, I often find myself mentally sporting a “What Would Dad Do?” T-shirt. I accept that I will probably never find his combination of generosity, integrity and intelligence in anyone else. I don’t know if that makes him my hero. But I know I wish he were here.