When Father's Day isn't something to celebrate.

By BERN MORLEY

I can’t help but think that Father’s Day, just like a lot of other “Hallmark card” confected holidays, put an awful lot of pressure on those of us who don’t necessarily have a reason to celebrate the day.

That’s not to say that there aren’t great dads out there. I am very lucky to be married to one. One who cares, is present and very involved in his children’s lives. I though, as a child, wasn’t so lucky.

My dad wasn’t a great man. Nor was he even a good man. He was a man I really knew little about. Whether that is my fault or his, will forever be unknown.

He was an alcoholic. A “two pot screamer” by all accounts, but an alcoholic none-the-less. Depending on who you listen to, he was either a top bloke, a bum or a misunderstood genius.

My mother and father married late-ish in life. They adopted me even later. In fact, my mother said she was fully aware of his drinking problem in between adopting my brother and I, yet her desire for one more child was so strong, she begged him to keep it together, at least until after they had the chance to adopt me.

The thing is, growing up, it didn’t occur to me when he played ‘Up there Cazaly’ 34 times in a night and start arguing with himself in a darkened room, that something was up. And you know why? Because it’s all I ever knew. It was my normal.

But of course it was anything but normal. Mum knew this. She knew he was drinking heavily, getting increasingly abusive and contributing zero to the family unit in both money and time. She also knew about the incoming threats to her children from his disgruntled clients.

Somewhere around the time I turned ten, three things happened. My grandfather who had lived with us and had dementia, passed away. Mum had been his full time carer. Secondly, after a fight, Dad threw a plate at my mother’s head and manhandled my brother and I. The third, my Dad was busted for stealing money from the church collection plates. The same church where my brother and I had often helped him collect money, oblivious to our father’s shameful and disgraceful behaviour. Not surprisingly, this was all too much for Mum.

Years later of course, I realised this is when Mum had a nervous breakdown. We as children, were shielded from this in such a way, it truly is a testament to her character.

She found the strength to have him legally kicked out and apart from one family wedding, and my Engagement Party, they never crossed paths again. As for us, his children, there were intermittent birthday cards, a phone call here and there, but not much more.

He died in 1997. Believed to be lung cancer. He smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish. It was either going to be the liver or the lungs that would kill him.

That of course, wasn’t the end. After he died, my mother, my brother, my fiancé at the time, and I cleaned out his caravan, his home for the previous 11 years. Dad was a hoarder. He was obviously very sick before he sought help and clearly close to death inside that caravan.

All four of us spent a day clearing out the rubbish. In between the empty goon casks and nuclear resistant cockroaches, we found sealed buckets of faeces and vomit of undeterminable age in takeaway containers. I cannot describe the smell.

I know it’s sad that he lived that way. That he was sick with a disease and addiction that is as bad, if not worse, than any other drug addiction out there. I found a tattered, rat eaten picture of my brother and I inside of a book that he had half read when I cleaned out his caravan and I couldn’t help but wonder if he, in his moments of clarity, thought about what he had lost and kept the picture as a token of his regret.

I look at my own life now. I know a couple of things. I know that I am very lucky. I know my children are lucky to have a father that isn’t lost to a disease he cannot control. I know that a loving and dedicated father will be their normal.

I also know Mum was so much stronger than I could ever have been.

Dad had his downfalls; of this there is not doubt. To me though, his frozen in time, adoring ten year old daughter, I knew nothing but love. I knew, underneath it all, that he loved me. He was affectionate and was the only one to call me by the nickname, “Detta”. He introduced me to music, of which Mum wasn’t a big fan. He’d sit me down and we’d listen to Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin and it was him who taught me to ride a bike. Or had the patience to.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I remember the bad things, I do, but he also, unknowingly, played an integral part in my future happiness. He made me strong and independent and I’m not entirely sure how I know this, I just know that he did. He was the one who instilled passion and fed my curiosity. Mum was content to just be my Mum. She didn’t ever wish to instil anything in me other than good manners and a work ethic. So, I guess, what I am trying to say is that everyone plays a part in your own little life’s personal play. And we need to take the good and the bad and do with that what we can.

Happy Father’s Day.