No more Christmas. Goodbye Auld Lang Syne.
It is difficult to write when your heart is broken. Yet even typing these words for someone else out there to read is an example of the writer’s greatest affliction; Conceit. Why should I publicise my personal grief and spread it across cyberspace for strangers to gawp at? It’s because this is what writers do. They can’t keep a bloody thing to themselves. If there is punishment for this, (and there should be) then such retribution is now in full swing. Yet I do this for our beloved daughter, Sarah Ball, who passed away at 11.10 pm on December 23rd 2012 aged just 46. It had been a tough, two year struggle against cancer, yet she fought like a tiger and stayed as bright as a falling star. Now that light has gone out.
When someone you love, someone as close as your child, dies, bit by bit there is a drip-feed of snippets of information from those who were equally as close which uncover uncomfortable truths about the way you were perceived as a parent. You fondly imagine that all the hugs and kisses during our shared lives may add up to some kind of closeness … you imagine in your self-centred way “Ah, yes; I’m very close to my lovely daughter...” Yet I’m learning – the hard way – just how much such conceit can cloud your vision. I’m beginning to feel shame, an insatiable, irreparable regret that I wasn’t as good a father as I thought I was.
The best artists, writers and musicians are those who progress with their humility intact. I was a loud-mouthed, inconsiderate joking bore from the start. If I couldn’t make it as a rock star back in the 60s, due to my own stupid obstinacy, then I knew that my first love, writing, would kick in in later life and maybe raise my porcine profile slightly above the humanity around me. That never happened, although I fondly imagined it was in progress. All those delightful Saturday afternoons and evenings, all those Christmases, birthday parties and New Year Eves, when the family gathered around the communal table, drinking, smoking, eating, laughing, well; I realise now that I always hogged the show. Every man likes to think of himself as kind and considerate. I’ve written reams about grief, love and compassion, studied religions, tried to be a Buddhist even at one time, yet there was an invisible, insurmountable barrier between me and the subject matter – my bloated ego. Why did poor Sarah sometimes resort to reading a magazine or a newspaper when I was in full sway? It’s obvious now. Whatever Dad was blathering on about, whatever comment he was making, it has to be listened to. I would even interrupt other people to enable me to continue. I even interrupted my sweet little girl. I Didn’t listen.
And now it is all too late. I can’t hug her and say how sorry I am. All I can do is stare at her lovely picture and feel the self-inflicted knife turn in my heart. I even hogged the funeral service with my sentimental, melodramatic oratory.
I did what I thought was my best with our children. I worked hard, made sure they were clothed, housed, fed and happy and tried to keep them in my heart at all times. But now I’m slowly realising that I am utterly flawed as a parent. Every memory of every bit of togetherness will now be shot through with painful guilt. If you have children, therefore, consider this and always, always, shut up and LISTEN. That way you will know your kids better, and not suffer this trauma, which I will carry to my own grave.
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| Sarah Ball, nee Bainton, October 2nd 1966 - December 23 2012. |
There will be no more Christmas, no more Auld Lang Syne. It’s too painful. And I shall probably never get drunk again. The conceit of being a writer is, unfortunately, a smouldering ember I can’t yet extinguish, because this is what I do to try and make a living. If you can see or feel these words, Sarah, wherever you are (it surely must be heaven) please forgive your ebullient, thoughtless father. Your death will change me forever. When we meet again, perhaps I’ll let you do the talking.