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sessifetI wanted to do a biography, but a collection of facts does not do his life justice, and to be honest, most of the stuff I know about his life was told to me. I wasn't around to experience it. So instead this has ended up as you can read below. A mix of facts, experiences, memories, feelings, dynamics. The way parts of my life and experience of it has been and was because he was my dad. I can't explain who he was completely, because there is so much I don't know. I can't explain who he was to me without explaining to you who I am. I can't show you what he was like to me without showing myself. So this is a part of me, of my heart. Be careful with it.
Dad was the youngest of five sons born to my Nan and granddad. Granddad died of lung cancer when my father was six years old. His older brother soon went out to help support their mother (this being the days before widows and orphans pensions). The middle brother was always a bit strange and mostly went his own way in life. The second youngest was the baby of the bunch, even though dad was the youngest.
From an early age, dad went along with my Nan when she went out. He always took care of her and this became more pronounced as he got older. He helped cook meals, helped around the house, went with her to the shops (Nan had developed agoraphobia over the years) and badgered his brothers for their part in the upkeep and running of the house. Because they were very close, my Nan took him along to many of her friends' burials. These days that would be considered inappropriate for a young child. Dad always said he'd seen enough people buried to last him a lifetime, but he never minded at the time. She was his mum and he wanted to take care of her.
While my dad was my Nan's favourite and he helped around the house and such, he was by no means a little angel. In fact, he was considered to be a right little terror by some of the more respectable residents of the village he lived in. There was getting 'arrested' for collecting wild duck eggs with his best friend, who happened to be the chief constable's son. They managed to give this poor man an apoplectic fit when his son asked for a glass of water while they were in the cells. When asked 'What about your friend?', my dad answered: 'I'm good, but I'd like a peanut butter sandwich, please.' Then there was stealing all the laundry racks on New Year's Eve and arranging them all on the village green. Or letting off fireworks inside the house because it was pissing down outside and they didn't want to go out and they had all this stuff anyway.
When he was sixteen, he met my mum and eventually, after all the usual first relationship messiness, they married. After a few years, my sister was born. Mum didn't really mind whether it was going to be a boy or a girl, but dad really wanted a daughter. He could never explain why, but he wanted their first born to be a girl. Sis' start in life wasn't easy. She was born premature and had to stay in the hospital for six weeks after she was born. Mum and dad always expressed regret not being able to have her home those six weeks and in some ways, they always tried to make up for it and regretted they never could. Partly because of this, my sister was always dad's little girl. Not my dad's favourite, but they had a connection from the beginning that I only got with him when I was older. I, on the other hand, was very much my mum's little girl. I had that connection with her that sis had with dad. They loved both of us equally, but the mental link wasn't as strong with one of us.
Together, we were a family of pairs. It was always pairs. Mum and dad, sis and I, mum and I, dad and sis. They overlapped and shifted and existed side by side. I remember vividly the day that changed for me. The day dad and I made the mental link (I'm sure sis remembers the day she clicked with mum that way for the first time. Weirdly enough, I never asked what it was.). I had just set fire to the large fallow field behind the huge storage building that was part of our property. Dad was angry and he wanted an explanation. He sat me down and asked me to explain. He didn't ask 'Why?'. Mum and dad never did, because they knew 'Why?' was too broad. The answer to 'Why?' is usually 'I dunno.' (which translates as 'Because I'm nine, you fool.').
So I explained to him, step by painfully logical step, how it had happened. I remember his face when he looked at me as I explained why I'd set fire to the Barbie doll before catapulting it into the field*. It was utter bafflement, and exasperation and recognition. Yes, he was angry, but he also was obviously trying not to laugh. He did afterwards take me to the owner of the field and made me apologise.
That's when it clicked. We made the link. I was very much my dad's daughter when it came to doing monumentally dumb things because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and if step one doesn't go as planned, you go to step two anyway because, hey, you're nine and this is what you do. Mum never got that particular brand of stupidity. Oh, she got why my brain went 'Oooh, prettiful flames.' when holding the lighter**. What she didn't get was the next step, which in my case was 'Hmmm, pretty flames. I wonder what happens if I do this.' and holding it to the nearest object I could reach. The whole process in my brain baffled her. (On the reverse side, dad or I never got how my sister got the notion that because that tree is there, you must climb it, no matter how high, rotten or infested with wasps the damn thing is. Mum got that no problems whatsoever.)
After that day, we were no longer a family made up of pairs. It was a family made up of four individuals with mum and dad always being the foundation. It added a lot to the chaos. We loved each other to bits and we knew what the others were feeling at any given time if we were in the same house. This, among other things, meant that we could drive each other up the wall without breaking into a sweat. Add to that the fact that we were allowed to have a say in matters that concerned us, and were encouraged to take part in discussions from an early age (basically as soon as we could logically*** articulate our points of view and wishes), and you have a loud and chaotic household. There were always discussions going on about politics, school, the latest books we read, what we wanted to do with our lives, why the earth was round, why don't the stars fall down, I come from that star over there, she stole my fork, I want dessert, dad's stealing my dessert, she ate my sweets, but you weren't eating that, stop kicking your sister, does god exist, what happens when you die, she's kicking me under the table, You stole my LEGO, did not, did too, did not, where do we come from, dad, tell her to stop pushing me, and then back to the philosophical quandaries embedded in 'See Spot Run'.
As the years went by, friends came and went. We were always allowed to bring friends home and there was always room at the dinner table for one more person. Mum and dad had wanted a big family, but they decided it was too risky to try again after I'd been born, so our friends and later boyfriends sort of became surrogate children if they wanted. This just added to the loving chaos that was our lives.
I'm not sure when I realised that, while we were a family of four with a foundation of two, on a deeper level we were also a family of one and three. One stable point with three satellites orbiting around it. At times the one was my mum (for example when my Nan died. She held my dad up, and they held us up). At other times (and in truth most of the times), it was my dad. My dad was a home-body. He liked nothing better than to be at home, reading a book, tinkering with his computers, building things. Mum and sis were much more outgoing and in need of social contacts. I am a mix of both mum and dad. I'm shy and introverted and I prefer staying at home, but occasionally I need social interaction. Because of his need to stay at home in a safe place, he became in a way our safe place. Our anchor. The one sitting in his chair reading while the women of the household are talking a mile a minute around him, not letting him get a word in edgewise sometimes and seemingly content with this.
Now that he's gone, I seem to have taken over this role most of the time. When the three of us are together, mum and sis will be talking up a storm and I see myself sitting there, being part of the whole but not actively taking part. I'm the one who sits at social get-togethers (like with family or friends or village fêtes and such) and I no longer wander from place to place. I prefer to sit there so that mum and sis have someone to come to when they want to lean on a totally familiar person for a while. I never was a social butterfly, but now I no longer have that familiar person to lean on, I've become even less so in those circumstances, because while mum and sis are totally familiar, they flit from place to place and feel horribly hemmed in when they can't. I suppose it sounds like I don't like this, but I've come to terms with what I am like and whose daughter I am in that respect, and I'm sort of growing used to it.
I no longer cry because of lost potential. He may not have lived a full life in years looking at the current standard, but he lived his life to the full when and wherever he could. I no longer cry because there is so much he didn't have a chance to do. I cry because we're celebrating his life, and he's not around to tell us we're being silly and could we please stop putting him on that damned pedestal, it's rather high and it seems to be wobbling alarmingly. I cry because I can sit here and tell my friends what kind of person he was and how he and mum have always been the stable points of my life, and he can't look over my shoulder and go 'That's not what we taught you, damnit!'.
I was told I used to stand at the top of the stairs looking down and then jump while shouting 'Daddy, catch me!' regardless of whether or not he was actually at the bottom of the stairs. It was a brilliant game to me, but I'm sure I caused dad no end of minor heart attacks. When asked why I kept doing it, I replied 'Daddy will always catch me.'.
I've never lost that inner child, that deep level of knowing that dad will always be there to catch me. We've buried so many people over the years and death has never been a stranger to us, yet I never grasped the concept that one day it would be one of my parents. And now, while the grown-up part of me can deal with dad no longer being here, my inner child is still standing at the top of those stairs, always ready to jump down while shouting 'Catch me, daddy!'. I think I'll never be rid of that, and I'm not really sure I want to. Because that inner child knows dad loves her and cares for her and will teach her about love and life and death and help her defeat the monsters under the bed and tell her how to make them not come back.
And he did. He taught me how to see the monsters and how to defeat them and how to make sure they don't come back. He taught me that while this monster will not come back, that monster might still be able to come in and how to guard against that one and how to recognise all the other ones. He taught me to make your home inside yourself so that you are never totally lost. To find and recognise family when they cross your path. To take happiness where you find it. To do as you will, to take care of the little ones in this world and those less fortunate than you. To find that inner part of you that can weather any storm and to not be afraid to ask for help or be vulnerable. To dare to be idealistic and open and to chase your dreams, to take every day and live it to the best of your abilities.
He taught me to be sarcastic, cynical, irreverent and nasty when the situation demands it. In short, he taught me to be me. To be my own person in this big world.
By just being himself, he taught me to love life, people, the world. To see the good in people, to assume the best of the world and to carry a big fucking stick to defend yourself when you turn out to be wrong.
Kees was kind, caring, short-tempered, shy, loyal, introverted, pig-headed, wise, flawed, vindictive, cynical, loving, a sarcastic bastard, idealistic, intelligent, a geek, a husband, human, my dad.
I'm proud of him.
Happy birthday, dad. I love you.
* It was a combination of 'Bored now.' and 'Oooh, make pretty flames!'
** Mostly because this is pretty much a given in children of a certain age. Flames talk to children. They don't say 'Careful, hot.' They say 'Come plaaaaay with meeeeeee. Make more prettiful flames!'. Any parent worth his or her salt will recognise that look in their child's eyes and get them the hell away from the matches.
*** For given values of, of course. We were after all still children.
Dad was the youngest of five sons born to my Nan and granddad. Granddad died of lung cancer when my father was six years old. His older brother soon went out to help support their mother (this being the days before widows and orphans pensions). The middle brother was always a bit strange and mostly went his own way in life. The second youngest was the baby of the bunch, even though dad was the youngest.
From an early age, dad went along with my Nan when she went out. He always took care of her and this became more pronounced as he got older. He helped cook meals, helped around the house, went with her to the shops (Nan had developed agoraphobia over the years) and badgered his brothers for their part in the upkeep and running of the house. Because they were very close, my Nan took him along to many of her friends' burials. These days that would be considered inappropriate for a young child. Dad always said he'd seen enough people buried to last him a lifetime, but he never minded at the time. She was his mum and he wanted to take care of her.
While my dad was my Nan's favourite and he helped around the house and such, he was by no means a little angel. In fact, he was considered to be a right little terror by some of the more respectable residents of the village he lived in. There was getting 'arrested' for collecting wild duck eggs with his best friend, who happened to be the chief constable's son. They managed to give this poor man an apoplectic fit when his son asked for a glass of water while they were in the cells. When asked 'What about your friend?', my dad answered: 'I'm good, but I'd like a peanut butter sandwich, please.' Then there was stealing all the laundry racks on New Year's Eve and arranging them all on the village green. Or letting off fireworks inside the house because it was pissing down outside and they didn't want to go out and they had all this stuff anyway.
When he was sixteen, he met my mum and eventually, after all the usual first relationship messiness, they married. After a few years, my sister was born. Mum didn't really mind whether it was going to be a boy or a girl, but dad really wanted a daughter. He could never explain why, but he wanted their first born to be a girl. Sis' start in life wasn't easy. She was born premature and had to stay in the hospital for six weeks after she was born. Mum and dad always expressed regret not being able to have her home those six weeks and in some ways, they always tried to make up for it and regretted they never could. Partly because of this, my sister was always dad's little girl. Not my dad's favourite, but they had a connection from the beginning that I only got with him when I was older. I, on the other hand, was very much my mum's little girl. I had that connection with her that sis had with dad. They loved both of us equally, but the mental link wasn't as strong with one of us.
Together, we were a family of pairs. It was always pairs. Mum and dad, sis and I, mum and I, dad and sis. They overlapped and shifted and existed side by side. I remember vividly the day that changed for me. The day dad and I made the mental link (I'm sure sis remembers the day she clicked with mum that way for the first time. Weirdly enough, I never asked what it was.). I had just set fire to the large fallow field behind the huge storage building that was part of our property. Dad was angry and he wanted an explanation. He sat me down and asked me to explain. He didn't ask 'Why?'. Mum and dad never did, because they knew 'Why?' was too broad. The answer to 'Why?' is usually 'I dunno.' (which translates as 'Because I'm nine, you fool.').
So I explained to him, step by painfully logical step, how it had happened. I remember his face when he looked at me as I explained why I'd set fire to the Barbie doll before catapulting it into the field*. It was utter bafflement, and exasperation and recognition. Yes, he was angry, but he also was obviously trying not to laugh. He did afterwards take me to the owner of the field and made me apologise.
That's when it clicked. We made the link. I was very much my dad's daughter when it came to doing monumentally dumb things because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and if step one doesn't go as planned, you go to step two anyway because, hey, you're nine and this is what you do. Mum never got that particular brand of stupidity. Oh, she got why my brain went 'Oooh, prettiful flames.' when holding the lighter**. What she didn't get was the next step, which in my case was 'Hmmm, pretty flames. I wonder what happens if I do this.' and holding it to the nearest object I could reach. The whole process in my brain baffled her. (On the reverse side, dad or I never got how my sister got the notion that because that tree is there, you must climb it, no matter how high, rotten or infested with wasps the damn thing is. Mum got that no problems whatsoever.)
After that day, we were no longer a family made up of pairs. It was a family made up of four individuals with mum and dad always being the foundation. It added a lot to the chaos. We loved each other to bits and we knew what the others were feeling at any given time if we were in the same house. This, among other things, meant that we could drive each other up the wall without breaking into a sweat. Add to that the fact that we were allowed to have a say in matters that concerned us, and were encouraged to take part in discussions from an early age (basically as soon as we could logically*** articulate our points of view and wishes), and you have a loud and chaotic household. There were always discussions going on about politics, school, the latest books we read, what we wanted to do with our lives, why the earth was round, why don't the stars fall down, I come from that star over there, she stole my fork, I want dessert, dad's stealing my dessert, she ate my sweets, but you weren't eating that, stop kicking your sister, does god exist, what happens when you die, she's kicking me under the table, You stole my LEGO, did not, did too, did not, where do we come from, dad, tell her to stop pushing me, and then back to the philosophical quandaries embedded in 'See Spot Run'.
As the years went by, friends came and went. We were always allowed to bring friends home and there was always room at the dinner table for one more person. Mum and dad had wanted a big family, but they decided it was too risky to try again after I'd been born, so our friends and later boyfriends sort of became surrogate children if they wanted. This just added to the loving chaos that was our lives.
I'm not sure when I realised that, while we were a family of four with a foundation of two, on a deeper level we were also a family of one and three. One stable point with three satellites orbiting around it. At times the one was my mum (for example when my Nan died. She held my dad up, and they held us up). At other times (and in truth most of the times), it was my dad. My dad was a home-body. He liked nothing better than to be at home, reading a book, tinkering with his computers, building things. Mum and sis were much more outgoing and in need of social contacts. I am a mix of both mum and dad. I'm shy and introverted and I prefer staying at home, but occasionally I need social interaction. Because of his need to stay at home in a safe place, he became in a way our safe place. Our anchor. The one sitting in his chair reading while the women of the household are talking a mile a minute around him, not letting him get a word in edgewise sometimes and seemingly content with this.
Now that he's gone, I seem to have taken over this role most of the time. When the three of us are together, mum and sis will be talking up a storm and I see myself sitting there, being part of the whole but not actively taking part. I'm the one who sits at social get-togethers (like with family or friends or village fêtes and such) and I no longer wander from place to place. I prefer to sit there so that mum and sis have someone to come to when they want to lean on a totally familiar person for a while. I never was a social butterfly, but now I no longer have that familiar person to lean on, I've become even less so in those circumstances, because while mum and sis are totally familiar, they flit from place to place and feel horribly hemmed in when they can't. I suppose it sounds like I don't like this, but I've come to terms with what I am like and whose daughter I am in that respect, and I'm sort of growing used to it.
I no longer cry because of lost potential. He may not have lived a full life in years looking at the current standard, but he lived his life to the full when and wherever he could. I no longer cry because there is so much he didn't have a chance to do. I cry because we're celebrating his life, and he's not around to tell us we're being silly and could we please stop putting him on that damned pedestal, it's rather high and it seems to be wobbling alarmingly. I cry because I can sit here and tell my friends what kind of person he was and how he and mum have always been the stable points of my life, and he can't look over my shoulder and go 'That's not what we taught you, damnit!'.
I was told I used to stand at the top of the stairs looking down and then jump while shouting 'Daddy, catch me!' regardless of whether or not he was actually at the bottom of the stairs. It was a brilliant game to me, but I'm sure I caused dad no end of minor heart attacks. When asked why I kept doing it, I replied 'Daddy will always catch me.'.
I've never lost that inner child, that deep level of knowing that dad will always be there to catch me. We've buried so many people over the years and death has never been a stranger to us, yet I never grasped the concept that one day it would be one of my parents. And now, while the grown-up part of me can deal with dad no longer being here, my inner child is still standing at the top of those stairs, always ready to jump down while shouting 'Catch me, daddy!'. I think I'll never be rid of that, and I'm not really sure I want to. Because that inner child knows dad loves her and cares for her and will teach her about love and life and death and help her defeat the monsters under the bed and tell her how to make them not come back.
And he did. He taught me how to see the monsters and how to defeat them and how to make sure they don't come back. He taught me that while this monster will not come back, that monster might still be able to come in and how to guard against that one and how to recognise all the other ones. He taught me to make your home inside yourself so that you are never totally lost. To find and recognise family when they cross your path. To take happiness where you find it. To do as you will, to take care of the little ones in this world and those less fortunate than you. To find that inner part of you that can weather any storm and to not be afraid to ask for help or be vulnerable. To dare to be idealistic and open and to chase your dreams, to take every day and live it to the best of your abilities.
He taught me to be sarcastic, cynical, irreverent and nasty when the situation demands it. In short, he taught me to be me. To be my own person in this big world.
By just being himself, he taught me to love life, people, the world. To see the good in people, to assume the best of the world and to carry a big fucking stick to defend yourself when you turn out to be wrong.
Kees was kind, caring, short-tempered, shy, loyal, introverted, pig-headed, wise, flawed, vindictive, cynical, loving, a sarcastic bastard, idealistic, intelligent, a geek, a husband, human, my dad.
I'm proud of him.
Happy birthday, dad. I love you.
* It was a combination of 'Bored now.' and 'Oooh, make pretty flames!'
** Mostly because this is pretty much a given in children of a certain age. Flames talk to children. They don't say 'Careful, hot.' They say 'Come plaaaaay with meeeeeee. Make more prettiful flames!'. Any parent worth his or her salt will recognise that look in their child's eyes and get them the hell away from the matches.
*** For given values of, of course. We were after all still children.
