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FINDING MY FATHER
by
Cynthia Rhodes
When Cynthia was 8 years old her dad decided to leave the family and take up with another woman. What followed was heartbreak and confusion, but like half the marriages today that break-up life goes and things change. One day Cynthia received a card from her dad who had gone to Australia to say he was dying of cancer. This is her story.
PART ONE & TWO (final part)
It was 1985. We lived in Markyate near Luton (Hertfordshire) and that’s where Dad worked. He had a good job managing a Dixon’s store and Mum worked part-time at a hairdressers. I was 8 years old and my brother Timothy was 10. We lived in a low rent council house and we had big plans to move into our own house in a ‘few years’ as Mum kept saying during that summer of 1985. ‘It won’t be long now’ she said as we drove around the beautiful countryside that lies between Luton and Aylesbury looking at ‘For Sale’ signs. But as they say ‘the plans of mice and men.....and our plans were shattered one sunday morning when Dad took two packed suitcases out to the car, came back to the front door, gave Timothy and myself a hug, and said that Mum would explain everything. Mum was in the kitchen gently sobbing. Dad left with tears in his eyes and pulled away without looking back.
Enough heartache follows that moment of departure, so much so, I won’t go into detail, but I will say his leaving had been talked about a ‘long time’ my mother said although she never believed it would come to the actual departure. We struggled on through those first few months, and Dad picked Timothy and I up on some sundays and took us out for a ride and an ice cream. He told us that he’d met someone else and that in time he’d get a divorce from Mum. He was very quiet about it, but very clear. No excuses were offered by Dad, because we kids never did witness any rows or bad feelings in the family, so to Timothy and I it was all very unreal and seemed based on nothing at all. We didn’t understand it. We didn’t understand him wanting to leave us.
That summer went by, then Christmas with just Mum, our grandparents on our Mum’s side, and Timothy. Dad left off some presents, his usual monthly allowance cheque he was ordered to pay by the court, and after that we saw less and less of him. Then one day Mum brought a man home to meet us. He was George, I think. He was the first of several. Sometimes he, or Alan, or Bill stayed overnight, and on one occasion Bill took us all down to Bournemouth for the day and I must say we enjoyed it. That trip was two years after Dad left and I was now approaching 11 and starting to maybe understand this love thing between men and women. Mum seemed happy, and the following year, 1988, Mum got her divorce and we all moved into a house Bill owned in Tring. Mum was happy and she kept singing, ‘we’re going to do our thing in Tring, ringaling ring.’! I must say we were happy too although we only got to go and visit Dad on rare occasions.
The years rolled by and I and Timothy completed our schooling, with Timothy going onto technical college to master computer science, and me going to the University of Sussex where I got my BA in teaching. Mum was happy and we saw Dad once or twice a year. He stilled cared about us all and still sent cards on birthdays and Christmas. The last time I saw him he seemed drawn and ill. Then he told me he was going to Australia for his health. He’d left his woman friend and had never re-married. He asked about Mum very often. This was in 2003 and I was a teaching in St.Albans when I got a postcard saying he was in Brisbane. He said he was very ill with cancer and could I visit.
PART TWO & Final Part.
Dad’s postcard to me was very clear. It said, ‘I have developed cancer and the doctor has given me a very short time to live. I would appreciate it very much if you could come down and visit me. Bring Timothy if you can.’ I took the necessary time off from my teaching and made arrangements to fly to Brisbane by the end of that week. I asked Timothy to come with me but knew in advance that he wouldn’t want to go. Timothy had never really forgiven Dad for leaving us, and in particular himself. He worshipped Dad and took it very hard when Dad walked away when Timothy was 8 years old. Timothy has never overcome that hurt and that feeling of desertion.
Mum was saddened and wrote a letter to Dad that she asked I give him. I called the hospital in Brisbane and told the ward Sister I would arrive the following tuesday. It seemed very strange to be boarding a plane full of happy people on their way to Australia. Most were Australians and they had that obvious glee in their being that you know comes from ‘going home.’ I sat very pensive and thoughtful for the longest time on this very long flight (with two stops en route) but eventually a lady next to me struck up a conversation about Australia. She wasn’t born there, being the child of a couple from London who had emigrated to Australia in the late 1960’s. It was this woman who told me about this Brits Abroad website. She loved Australia and was returning after the funeral of a nephew of her now departed parents. I told her of my reason for travelling and she was very sympathetic. She was a kind lady.
After checking into a hotel I called the hospital and made arrangements to visit my father that evening in the palliative care ward. It was awfully hot in Brisbane but on entering the huge hospital the air conditioning seemed to cool me down in many ways. I took the large lift to the seventh floor and came out close to the reception area. A nurse took me along the corridor to a room where the curtains were of a kind of lace and were pulled together. Dad was propped up with pillows looking ghostly pale. He had on a badly fitting light green pyjama top and by his bed was a shiny pan with used Kleenex on top of it. There was a smell of some kind of strong medicine or such like. I walked over to him and bent down to kiss his brow. His eyes opened very slowly and a smile seemed to painfully cross his face.
We exchanged a few words about Mum and Timothy and I gave him Mum’s letter. The nurse came in to check him, went out and brought in a doctor. She asked me to wait outside the room. After awhile the doctor spoke to me saying Dad would not last through the night and I could stay all night if I wanted to. They put a large armchair next to Dad’s bed and gave me a pillow and a few knitted blankets. ‘You staying awhile love,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll be here with you until the morning. After all Dad I came here to be with you.’
Just before dawn Dad tiredly flung his arms about, I grabbed them, held them to my chest, kissed his tortured face, and saw the look of complete bewilderment on his face as he took his last breath. He was gone. And a bright new sun filled the room.
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