My father didn't remember

My father didn't remember firing the maid.
He was suprised when he got home after being in the hospital and found the maid was gone.

Over the years there were other things he didn't remember either. Like my 21st.
He did remember some other birthdays - like my 6th - okay - he was still at home then, so he probably had my mother to remind him. I loved that card. It was a big red apple with a bright green worm and it said To the apple of my eye. Which I had been until my mother cut my long, knotted hair and I went all rebellious at 9 and nicked some useless stuff from that damn stationary shop.

He forgot to give my eldest sister, Janine, R10 when she completed the Rubik's cube, like he said he would. Of course he didn't believe she would, but she did. 
He forgot that by the time my parents got to the divorce lawyers, my mother had already given him plenty chances to improve on his family man status, but he only ever remembered that very last chance in the lawyers office when she said no more chances.

Perhaps I should've been more forgetful. It might have been easier for both of us had I forgotten when he didn't phone for my 21st. Or my 18th. Or my 16th. Many birthdays. I should have forgotten when he didn't keep his word, I should have forgotten when he became unreasonably irritated, I should have forgotten when he wasn't there for me.

So I got on a plane

So I got on a plane and went to South Africa. The flight was long. I was distracted. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I stared out the window at passing clouds and sandy mountains topped with snow and wondered about the lives going on down below.  The middle east doesn't look like a place I would ever want to live. Dry and barren, dusty roads and trees only here and there. I hate the heat.

Eventually I watched The Bridge to Terabithia. And I sobbed. It's a sad movie (and it involves someone dying), but I also sobbed for my father and for everything that was and everything that wasn't. Memories about him jumped around in my mind - eating peanut chocolate in his car and wanting to be ill, his light blue Ford Cortina pick up, his limp.

His limp.
When I was a year old my father was working as a traffic officer. One of the many jobs he had before the age of 40. As I remember, the story goes like this (I'll have to check with my mom) - my father came home at lunch time and on seeing a bright red welt across my face, fired the maid. Apparently she had hit me. He then got onto his traffic officer motorbike and headed off back to the office. At least I think that's where he was going. I'll have to check the facts. He was travelling down Aliwal Street - a busy road in our home town of Bloemfontein, South Africa, when he was hit by a car and it went over his leg. It was a bad break. After that, his leg was significantly shorter than the other and he spent the rest of his life limping.

And as I see it - not just physically.

My father died today

My father died today. Three years ago.
It was the start of a very strange experience.

I received a call from my mother. It was late at night and I was in the bathroom. My husband came in saying my mother was on the phone. I knew instantly that something was wrong. My mother doesn't phone at ungodly hours. All the while I washed my hands, I kept repeating silently to myself, 'Just stay calm, just stay calm, just stay calm...'

My mother's voice told me too, something was wrong. No, not hysterical or high pitched. Calm and gentle. She mostly speaks calm and gently, but this was a 'I have to deliver bad news' kind of gentle. One of my brothers and my father had been in an accident. My brother was okay, but my father didn't make it.

My parents divorced when I was 8 and I went from being his golden girl to being nothing of importance, really. I didn't do anything particularly nasty to drop in rank, but my father was easily displeased by simple things like my long hair being cut, me not hearing the first time he spoke & my innocent shop-lifting from a stationary shop at the age of 9. I didn't know I was stealing - it was gift vouchers that I mistook for pamphlets. Okay, and a sheet of stickers. But I took a whole two handfuls of gift vouchers, having no idea of their worth. My father was furious. He was a locksmith and did work for this stationary shop. What would they think of him?

And so was the relationship. Me disappointing him as far as I went - mostly unknowingly, and him not paying attention unless I was very badly behaved - he blamed my mother - or when I was very well behaved - he took the credit.

He was not an easy man. But he was my father. An absent father, but my father no less.
And now he was dead.