My Dad died very suddenly and traumatically, at home, aged 57. I was with him whilst desperately waiting for the ambulance. I felt utterly helpless watching him convulse and asphyxiate, begging for air and there was nothing I could do. I was at home with him because I was recovering from brain surgery after a haemorrhage from a mass in my brain.
My best friend (at the time) came over with her Mum who kept telling me it was a blessing in disguise- God’s will etc. My friend attended the funeral and later told me I had no idea how hard it was for her to attend because she had a migraine but because she was such a good friend she came anyway.
As we left the funeral to drive to the wake my aunt (his sister) cheerfully and excitedly told me all about a wonderful dream she’d had about my Dad being in heaven with Jesus. Which is her belief and her way of coping but I wished she’d let me be sad rather than trying to get me to be happy about her dream.
Then a few years later my other aunt (also his sister) asked me what I’d like to drink as she was buying drinks for a family gathering, and I said anything- I don’t mind (she has form for finding fault and I felt anxious that any choice I made would be the wrong choice). But she insisted I choose so I opted for a Diet Coke, which she said was absolutely foul. I know she only drinks normal coke and thinks Diet Coke is the devil. So I said I knew it probably wasn’t great (artificial sweeteners etc) but it’s just what I’m used to because Dad always drank it. And she replied, “I always told your Dad that drinking Diet Coke would kill him”.
When I was using the priority seat on a train, post brain surgery (I struggled to stand for long periods and have another complication that causes low blood pressure and dizziness when standing upright). I really struggle to use those seats because I look so well on the outside. A woman boarded with a group of people, including an older man who clearly needed a seat. I was just trying to stand to offer my seat when she started talking very loudly, as if addressing the whole packed carriage, about how disgraceful it is that people selfishly and thoughtlessly choose to sit in priority seats that they don’t need and that her father was in genuine need and has to have a seat immediately. I said nothing and seriously regret it... I often replay the memory over in my head and imagine all the things I wish I’d said to her.
People still tell me that I’m lucky to have had such a wonderful Dad and that some people have shit Dads- that I’m lucky to have had an amazing Dad until I was mid 20s rather than a shit Dad who lived a long time.
But the one thing I’ll never forgive is when an adult couple pushed in front of me when I was a teenager, in a queue at Burger King and then denied it when the server asked who was next. The server attended to them first and afterwards turned to me and said “I’m not serving you because we don’t serve people who push in”. I was gutted. The injustice of it still has me seething!