Rob’s Dad coming across his name in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.
Welcome back to A Writing Life, our series of monthly articles written by long-time 26 member and contributor Rob Self-Pierson.
Like many of us, Rob straddles the line between commercial and creative writing. Each month, we’re inviting him to share the trials and triumphs of a writing life – and what he learns along the way.
It’s January, and Rob’s father has just passed away. Rob reflects on a writing life in difficult times like these, and pays tribute to his dad…
I very nearly didn’t write this month.
Correction: I very nearly felt I couldn’t write this month. But here we are. I am writing.
It’s hard because I’ve just lost my dear dad, after three months of supporting my dear mum through recovery from a brain injury.
How does one write about a writing life in the face of all this? What worth are words at such a time?
But writing is what I do. And words are all I am.
And the process of writing, without my usual fuss of detail and structure, is what I’ve been doing most since Dad passed away on 10 January. I’ve been doing it both consciously and without intention.
Breathe, reflect, write. Then I see if I can make sense of what has happened, and how I’m feeling in all the strange, alien moments.
Writing, I’ve come to realise, is another form of walking: a way of getting from one place to another. Whatever it is I’m writing, I go from word to word, trying to get my bearings in meaning.
Doctors are calling what happened to Dad a cardiac arrest. There are two words I struggle with. Used to describe the moment that pinched the candle of such a kind, caring, intelligent, gentle man of wit and warm glow. Two cold, clinical words of zero comfort.
No, I won’t have it. After caring for Mum, taking his handmade sandwiches to her in hospital, stroking her fingers from beside her bed as she slept through pain, rearranging their home for her return, ordering her mobility aids to boost her recovery, decorating her tree for a Christmas he’d be rushed from, sirens and lights shouting, just five days after she’d been discharged following months away, first suffering a brain haemorrhage then with a broken hip, having loved her in ways I’ve never witnessed any human love another and may not again in my lifetime, Dad died from a broken heart.
He’d been crushed, in body and spirit, by the night Mum got ill last September. And for five years cancer had been chipping away at the man. But Dad, strong of will, held on, and held onto what he could, and has given it to my mum in his last to help her get better.
Cardiac arrest? Pff. Those two words tell no story and are not welcome here. I love words, but some like these are swines.
My brothers are organising Dad’s funeral. ‘Funeral’ is a word for this time. The least fun the word ‘fun’ could ever have, finding itself stuck in ‘funeral’. Funeral, wake, grief, mourning. These are the words that line up to greet you. They lock arms and stop you being part of life. ‘There is a sort of invisible blanket between me and the world,’ C. S. Lewis writes in A Grief Observed. ‘I find it hard to take in what anyone says.’ Those swine words are part of it. They block out all else.
But words are all I am. All words. And words are how I get from one place to another. And this series of articles is A Writing Life. And a writing life is a messy life. This time right now is my writing life.
For example, my reflections at the moment often arrive in poetic form. When the sun rises over the misty River Lea, I see Dad up there and I speak out loud to him. I ask him for strength to continue to support Mum. I thank him for all the small things that have become so big now, the fruit of a lifetime of nurturing me and my brothers. Robins of myth are ever-present, their breasts blood red.
Coincidences abound, the sort you invite at times of vulnerability. The man beside me in this pub, as I write these words, has recently lost his father too, and has just turned 40 as I have. When he walked his daughter by me just then – ‘I miss Granddad,’ she whispered to the air – he greeted another, older man who’d been looking at me as I read C. S. Lewis. The older man’s name was Colin, same as my dad. Being tuned to these moments is a writing life.
A writing life is a good life. So let’s leave this wander through a time of loss and grieving on a bright note – Dad would want it that way. Let’s remember: there are far more good words than swines. We’ve now met Sue, the celebrant for the funeral. ‘Celebrant’ is a good word. Celebrants celebrate a life. The word comes from the Latin celebrare, ‘to assemble to honour’. We laughed and smiled as we assembled as a family with Sue to share stories of my dad – I felt he was there with us. In a couple of days, we’ll assemble again, wife and sons, daughter-in-law and grandchildren and sister, friends who have shared time and made merry with Dad, to honour him with our presence and our love. Together, we’ll celebrate one of the best.
Together we go
Thank you, Dad. For everything you helped me with – and all the stuff you’ll never know you helped me with. Or maybe you did know. And maybe you do know. Any time I go from one place to another, walk with me. You were and will always be my favourite companion.
Rest now, in peace, with all my love,
Rob