My Dad is a pretty amazing person.
He was the first kid from his school to ever go to University and completed a PhD in organic chemistry by the ridiculous age of 23-24. He lectured in Malta and then came back to England where he got a DipEd and eventually a Master of Education doing what he has always loved, training teachers doing primary science (after all, he says, he finally realised he didn’t understand what the heck all the equations and squiggles he was drawing on the board meant in the first place).
He even pretty much turned down the the possibility of becoming a professor because for him, ‘good teachers should be bloody well teaching, not shuffling papers’.
After my parents split, when I was 10, he looked after me and my two younger sisters 50% of the time, right down the line, as well as working like a dog and still kept it together (and did it bloody well). When my family broke up in 2002 he cancelled his entire summer holiday and was out here, with his wonderful partner, within a week… via New Zealand (that’s the longest trip you can make, in the world, BTW… he did it in economy).
And today we found out that he has cancer of the oesophagus. He’s only 62.
We don’t know how bad it is yet, just that he definitely has it and I don’t really know why I’m writing this, except that I guess I want some way to express how I’m feeling and this has become a kind of place for that. In a way. And I think there’s power in this, I’ve felt it before.
Someone, can’t remember who, mentioned a bit back something along the lines of ‘of course you wouldn’t blog about something personal online’. Well I think that’s fucked. I think that if we’re to represent and communicate fully with each other and the world then it’s got to me in a less than two dimensional sense.
I’m not ‘religious’ and nor do I hold any particular set of beliefs but I do think that manifestation, positive thought and prayer can have an impact. Basically, whatever your religion, beliefs or ideology, if you could spare a few moments of thought and goodwill for my dad then I thank you.
James