The Sheer Terror Of Hearing From My Father

The panic if I see his name pop up on my phone

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Let me start by saying that my father has never given me any reason to fear him or to panic if I see he is ringing me but nevertheless that is how I feel and I have tried to get past this in every imaginable way but the last few years I have finally had to accept that this is how it is meant to be.

The worst my father ever did to me was be an absentee father. In that I mean that he was of that generation where he’d head to the pub after work and arrive home long after I was in bed. In the mornings he would wake long after I had gone to school. It was only weekends that I would see him.

My father is also of that generation whereby men do not show emotions as that was considered a weakness. Therefore the only time throughout my childhood that I ever heard my father tell me he loved me, was when he was drunk.

When I was young, my father tried to spend more time with me. Weekends he would often put me to work in the vegetable gardens with him, or I would help to dig the irrigation ditches for the sprinklers.

And then there were the times when he would ask me if I wanted to come to work with him during the school holidays. This was my favourite as I’d get to spend all day in my Dad’s company, as he…