You might think that in nearly fifty years, we would have had a proper conversation, but though I told him about myself (too much at times, at times too little), and though he always listened, he only rarely shared his innermost thoughts, his personal beliefs as a man apart from his parental role, as a father and breadwinner; even then, when he revealed anything of himself, it was only in writing, never in conversation.
My father was the kindest man I have ever known, the most forgiving of others, the hardest on himself: in all my life, I only once saw him lose his temper, and it was not with me. (If I can get through a single day without berating one of my children, it is a rare achievement.) He was a good man, without a trace of self-consciousness, generous and tolerant to a fault, and—until his last weeks—optimistic beyond reason: for him, the empty glass was not half-full, it was spilling over.
The main regret I have - children are so ungrateful - is that, until his final letter to me, he never told me what to do, what he would have wanted me to become, or not. He never advised, cajoled, persuaded or encouraged me to take one course of action over another: somewhat ironic, given that he spent most of his professional life in public relations. Whatever I chose was met with pride and quiet support, even though he must have known with the advantage of experience that so many of my life choices were ill-conceived.
I can recall only two occasions in my childhood and adolescence when he offered unsolicited advice: once, when I was about Seán's age (9), he told me, as we were working in the garage on the underside of some piece of woodwork: "It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do it to the best of your ability"; another time, just after I had received an entrance exhibition to Cambridge, he advised me that if I wanted to do well in business, it might be better to go straight in to it now. I laughed at this then, though of course he was right: with every year of tertiary education that followed, I made myself less and less employable outside of academia. But I have tried to live by the first motto: it's not easy, and usually it makes no difference on the surface, but it is right (a Puritan humanism inhabits us both).
Yet, for all he inspired confession in others, my father was personally inscrutable: not because he was cold or defensive—far from it—but because, like an amateur psychoanalyst, he filled any conversation with outwardly directed questions and concern about others' ambitions, beliefs and desires. Even when asked directly, it was harder to prise a judgement or opinion from him than to open a live oyster with only one's fingers. Until his final letters, I never really knew what he thought of me—or more importantly, what he thought of himself: he always joked about writing the 'Great Ulster Novel'; surely he had the talent, but never the opportunity. And until those letters, trapped as he was in his culture and generation (despite all superficial evidence to the contrary), he never told me he loved me. Nor I, him, except in writing: something we always had in common. I never doubted his love, but it was good to hear nonetheless.
My father's last letters are also one of the main reasons for writing this whole blog, when I should be preparing classes or writing research papers, or helping to clean the house or to change diapers. A modest attempt to achieve the one thing he has ever asked of me. The better part of his brief correspondence is too personal—it is also too kind, too flattering—for me to make public. Yet to publish certain lines is not exploitative, but rather restitutive of his memory: for those many people who knew his public side as a great communicator, as a humorist, as a non-political, non-partisan activist—his work for the town of Holywood being only the last of his selfless causes—it is important to show what he held inside.
My father was not a great man in the popular sense—he was neither famous nor flawless—but he was a good one, and a great human being. I loved him, and I wished I could have told him properly before Parkinson's disease stole his attention from us, and ultimately his life.
Here then are two excerpts: the first explains his reticence in his own words, the second, the reason I have to keep writing:
05 November 2006
As a child I never learned to bond.
Your grandfather was the original shy commander—a man used to administering authority in a rough shipyard, but with an inability to show affection to those around him (he himself had been brought up by two maiden aunts in the absence of a runaway husband and a mother who, after the scandal of a divorce drove her for many years off to Scotland.) [sic]
I never doubted his love for me and my siblings (although we never used the 'L' word in working class Belfast) but I can remember only one instance in my young life when he held me and that was when he and my mother were going out shopping leaving me at the dining room table to work on my school 'exercises.'
He put his hands on my crouched shoulders and squeezed them - the remembered mark of physical affection in a young life that had been plagued by low (sometimes high) level illness and a deafness that wartime medicine was not able to deal with and school authorities failed to recognise.
The result was that, like my father, but for different reasons, I grew up a self-centred and 'distant' child uncertain of how to cope with relationships and whose determination to succeed was in the non-communicating world of writing and music...(A few years ago, my father embarked on a less confessional, but equally fascinating genealogical project—The Bickerstaff Connection, which I posted as a separate blog: it would serve his memory well if you would read it. There are also a few tributes on this blog.)
His final letter to me was inspired by one of my first blog posts, written in 2007 Thinking about Madeleine (I), which I fully intended to follow up, and haven't done till now. It is a personal reflection on parenthood, and on the situation of Madeleine McCann's parents, whose story has disappeared from the headlines, but whose tragedy is ongoing. Of the post my father wrote:
26th September 2007
Writing is a powerful tool.
I have gained a greater understanding of you in the few minutes of reading 'Thinking about Madeleine' than I have in over forty years as your father...
...You've learned how to express your inner self, an achievement more valuable than ten years at a college of writing.
I hope to be able to read much more of it in the coming years—remember that I have determined to reach 85!—so that I may exit the mortal coil knowing that I have a son who has attained a recognition in a discipline in which his father has only ever been at the edge.
Love, Dad
My father didn't make it to 85: he turned 77 this year. Nor was I able to fulfil his last and only ambition for me. I only hope that these continuing efforts offer some small recompense, and that they are as good as they can be.
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