I killed my father

It wasn't anything premeditated or anything like that. It wasn't my action that killed him, rather my inaction that did nothing to stop his death.

I'll explain.

My family was reasonably happy. My father was the hard worker, well liked by everyone around. Behind the scenes he wanted his family to be the idilic standard. He worked hard for it, and yes he did bully my mother in to towing the line. That is, however, another story for another day.

If he hadn't died, certainly my own change of sex would not have happened quite as it did and I would be living a very different life today. But he did die.

This has been brought on by watching the TV show, Me, My Father And Moorgate, in which a reporters father dies in the Moorgate underground crash thirty one years ago, and the whole story unfolds. I didn't really plan to pen this now. It just sort of happened. It also doesn't help that I'm using that line at the moment. I get off before Moorgate, but it is another factor which chills the soul.

It is also the first aniversary of Master Charles' death. So I was sensative to the subject of death before I saw the TV programme.

So back to a time a little over nineteen years ago. I was seventeen. There had been a couple of recent family deaths, so the mood wasn't a jovial one. I was upstairs in my bedroom, sitting at my computer; my usual haunt. The neighbour popped his head around the door and prompted me to go downstairs, urgently.

I followed him to our back garden, where my father was lying on the concrete path. I immediately called 999, and waited with my dad until they arived. Mum had been there, but I have no memory of where she came from. I don't even remember the ambulance people turning up, or taking dad away.

All I remember is sitting in the living room chair, alone in the house. The neigbours had gone with mum to the hospital, and I was waiting for them to return. You know how minutes pass like hours, and that hours pass like minutes? Well, it was like both of those, but it wasn't. I have no track of how long I had been sat there, in total shock.

What I do remember is my mother walking through the living room door; my neighbours close behind her. I rose, and she looked at me and shook her head. I went to her and we cried. Dad was gone.

Even though these years have passed, I still kick myself in the heart. I had been in cubs, air cadets, the whole thing. At my age, I knew CPR, I knew how to keep a patients blood pumping. I had all that knowledge, but when it came to my own father I was too damned shocked to use it.

I have been told that he could have been on that floor for ages. Even if I had got him breathing again, the odds were heavily that he would have been brain dead before I had even started recusitation. He died from angina. Even if I had saved him and he wouldn't have been a vegetable, then it would only be a matter of time before the next time. Even despite this knowledge, it doesn't help me. (Edit - he didn't actually die from angina, he died from a clot because of angina.)

It has been a long process, and over the years I have come to know the man I didn't know when he was alive. Some of the things he did when I knew him, I have viewed differently as maturity has slowly taught me about the realities of life; the realities that I was shielded from as a child. I spent some time working in amongst his colleagues; I worked at the very work place that he worked, in among the people that worked with him. I have been told how he used to behave; the songs he used to sing; how much people loved him.

They didn't know the arguments that went on at home, when the only one there to hear them was me. But all he wanted was a family he could be proud of. I can only dread to think of what would have happened had I changed sex while he was alive. I was the only child. All his hopes were pinned on me. It frustrated the hell out of him when I failed to live out his dreams. He and mum went without to get me the computer pieces I needed to progress my feaverish knowledge. How he used to sit in the corner of the room and smile as I baffled other grown ups with my abilities.

The things I have been told since his passing. The things I have discovered. Yes, some of the things he did were cruel; but I have started to connect with his motives. I feel it badly in my heart that I know more about my father after he has died, than I did when he was alive.

He was a James Last fan, and I got a liking for Last's music myself. Two years later I was studying in Sheffield. James Last came to play. It was during a holiday so I stayed there for the period and I had the entire student house to myself. I got myself a circle seat for the performance. The concert was wonderful until just before the last song. James told the audience that it was customary not to say anything after the last song, and the band said their goodbyes. They then struck up the last tune. "The Living Years," by Mike and the Mechanics. I was in tears throughout that whole final song, and I walked through Sheffield streets with tears rolling down my face. When I finally got back to my digs, I cried myself to sleep.


I mourn my father even now. From where I am sitting, and how I am feeling, I will probably be mourning the man I never really knew, until my own death.