One man can make a difference

 The Eighties TV series Knight-Rider had the tagline "One man can make a difference" and was about a man who stood up for what was right, even if he was the only man who did so.

Dad loved that kind of show, whether it be David Carridine, Clint Eastwood or Keanu Reeves making a difference despite others was what he loved, admired and was himself.

He had many stories from his past where he stepped forward, stood up and saved people from situations where others simply stood by.

I  too would like to think I have that trait and only in later life to realise it may have been more inspired by him than I realised.

Well done dad, you made a difference.

Nifty fifty

 So I'm fifty....

I've lost friends, had a nice party where I danced with old friends,  and I'm losing my hair.

Now I have just passed another milestone, I now have one less parent.

So what can I say about my dad.

Moaney old git, well yes...

But, he was also someone who would stand up for you and what he believed in.

He was someone who worked all the jobs he needed to work in order to provide for his family.

He was a mine of .... information

and he and he had a twinkle in his eye.

He was the kind of man who could enjoy having his family around him, and in his later days would have reflective moments where he was not afraid to say he loved you and give you a hug.

My kids observation idea of his perfect afterlife includes good wifi and a fully charged ipad.

Looking at the man in the mirror

Aside from the lyric in the song and seeing in used as part of a American hallucengtic healing tv show I     had never come across the simply power of spending time looking dead in the eye at the person staring back from the mirror.

For me, I had the experience whilst getting my Christmas haircut (I am writing this on Christmas day 2022), admitidly I have had an eventfull year and whilst there a million chiche's about keeping going this year has been an experience.

The year started with losing another friend this time it wasn't a quick one, but to be able to support her and her family though the process was a priveldge, she was a funny and generous, and in particular a great friend to CK.

To lose a peer and friend  is hard , but to see at her wake photos of her growing up to photos of her as a little girl brought home how is must of been for her father to lose both his wife and his daughter to the big-c.

The year ended with the  bign-c coming even closer to home, this time my dad, so here I sit about to have my first christmas with just one parent, however with it not being a suprise I got to spend a morning with him alone shortly before the end, just talking and watching the rememberance day cermony on the TV in his room.

I am sure there is more I can say, and maybe I will in time, but for now, I just want to say.

Love you dad.

 

  

 

 

Ghosts in my DNA

They say "The circle of life" as if it is a salve to injustices of life.

There is no more personal than the baggage of DNA, as much as you want your kids to be a better version of you and you want to be that for your parents, DNA is there, pinning you to previous generations you never even met.

I have been thinking about this recently, my mother has just had, like her mother before her, a degenerative diagnosis, it makes me wonder what is waiting in my DNA and what we have given our kids.

I guess I should take some comfort in knowing technology is moving on apace, so things should be better for my mother's generation than it was for hers, and in turn, knowing that for my kid's, medical technology will be able to treat in the future whatever is concealed in their chromosomes even better than it would for me now.

"The circle of life" is, and has been even more immediate for a couple of friends of mine, I won't share their stories here as they are not mine to tell, but it's cruel, and I cry.

Final voices

It was to be a normal journey home, carriage full of book-reading phone-fiddling strangers sitting at the front of the train as usual ready to jump out at last station we share and off to our homes.

The journey was as normal till at the second last the train didn't leave the station, then the voice started repeating, "will somebody help me", we didn't understand at first, then someone did, he opened his window and using his phone as a torch started trying to call back to the voice.

It then slowly dawned on the rest us what was happening, a mixture of confusions crossed everyone's faces. The guy with the torch grabbed the driver and the lights dimmed as the track-power extinguished as the cacophony of emergency vehicles arriving arose.

It was a solemn walk as we left the station and as I ran home all I could hear the voice of the man no longer going to his.

I can still hear him in my head calling out for help, and worse when he stopped.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/blind-man-killed-after-stepping-21586595.amp

Summer 2017

Its Summer 2017 and the kids are growing up fast, AG has the body of a gymnast and the soul of a poet, TC has the body of an athlete and the kind of laser-focus my magpie mind can only stare in wonder at.

Who they are now seems a mile away from the babes in arms I once held, but they still love to give me cuddles and haven't realised yet how quite ridiculous I am.

I have been helping TC to learn to ride his bike, I was just trying to work out how to teach him how to set off without help when he zoomed past me and off into the distance. It feels like a metaphor.

I like being a dad.


 

The kids did thier  first 2k "park run" this morning in a time of 16min 18 seconds this was despite being accompanied by their badly dressed unfit dad :-)