<3
Although I feel I have a lot to say, I am going to try and keep it as brief as I can. I know that whatever I say, it won’t be enough because it should be Dad speaking right now. He is so brilliant, so otherworldly, so warm, that it is hard to fathom him leaving forever. I know it has, and will be said so many times, but he is someone whose presence one does not forget easily. His mind is so vivid, so desperately creative.
A true storyteller, Dad would always embellish things he saw with his ideas. A seagull became a spacecraft, a beach an alien HQ. He would always talk to me about how the trees’ rustling was them talking to each other. I love him so much. So much has been left unsaid. It is said that, at its core, grief is love for someone that has nowhere to go.
Two days before my dad died, I was sitting in a Pret near my work, one I had been to with him a few times before, thinking about how I missed him and how I hoped he would visit me spontaneously again soon. I didn’t tell him this because I thought that I would see him a few weeks later, and tell him in person. But the last conversation I had with him was over FaceTime on Sunday the 20th of November, from 15:52 to 16:00. At the end of the call, I told him his moustache looked fab. He beamed at me and said he was thinking of growing his beard longer. Then he said he had to go. Those are our last words to each other, I think. Maybe we told each other I love you. I wish so badly that I knew, but I don’t remember the details anymore because I’d never thought that I would have to.
I now go into that café and sit at the tables Dad and I sat at. It’s interesting how much more empty chairs seem once someone you love has died.
I would never have thought that simply walking through the supermarket, or the street, or through my dreams, or even just being conscious could make me miss my dad so much that it feels as if that is all that the world is, that he is everywhere, all around me. Maybe that’s what people mean when they say that they will always keep someone in their hearts.
Dad would often talk joyously throughout the length of his life about his trips to St. James’ Park in London, and how he would feed the squirrels and birds. That was when I would catch glimpses of his childhood self. I think it was one of the things that made commuting worth it for him. He cared for wildlife so very much. If any you ever go to London, if you would like to, you could visit St. James’ Park, and maybe even feed the wildlife there in his stead, if you have the chance.
The final thing I will say is this poem; it’s one that I think my Dad would have wanted to read to you himself if he could:
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, walk for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.
Becky Kember
19th December 2022