On Father's Day 2017 I feel torn between remembering the joyous days spent with my father and deep grief at remembering the last time I saw him alive followed by the image of his lifeless body as my siblings and I laid him to rest just 8 months ago in October 2016. Last year was one of the most difficult years I have lived through!
I look in the mirror and I look at my siblings and I am comforted as I see my father’s genes living on. Yes he was here and his presence is still here. I inherited my father’s fine hair that did not grey until he was close to 70; unlike my siblings who inherited my mother’s thick hair which went grey when she was in her 30s. I have no grey hair yet and it will be a while before I see any grey hairs. My youngest sibling Ingvar is the image of my father; just a shorter version, my father was a 6 footer. Ingvar also inherited my father’s charming personality. My brothers Mark and Mortimer look like my father and move with the same graceful swagger. Mortimer has my father’s hearty, irrepressible laugh and like my father he can eat the house and not gain weight. My eldest nephew LeAndre also looks like my father (those strong Jonas genes!) tall and graceful. It is comforting to see my father live on in his descendants although sometimes the memories are overwhelmed by grief. We (my siblings and I) all have some part of Papa that lives on in us and sometimes I see glimpses of Papa in a smile, a turn of someone’s head, a laugh even a familiar comment.
It is sometimes heart rending to look at the photographs of my father as he was in old age, after his debilitating stroke in March 2012. It was almost a year of rehabilitation before he could walk again but he never completely recovered his speech or his writing skill. My Papa whose penmanship I always admired and tried to copy could not write after March 2012.
I prefer to look at photographs of my parents’ wedding. They were so young and happy, smiling and surrounded by family. My mother passed away when we were all very young and Papa was our only parent for decades. I find comfort in looking at photographs of Papa when he was a young man as I remember him from my childhood. I have photographs of Papa in his police uniform, not smiling but so handsome that it does not matter. He looks so good! A friend looked at the photograph and commented that he looked like African royalty. I almost burst with pride.
I will never again get to hug, kiss, touch my father, or ask him any questions. He really is gone. The last time I touched him he was lying still and he was so cold. Every time I think of that last touch I just bawl. I hope that one day I can think of that and have a different reaction but it has only been 8 months so the anger and grief are still fresh. I cannot begin to count the number of times grief has overwhelmed me over the past 8 months when I would sob uncontrollably for what seems like hours. I have attended one funeral over the past 8 months and the expressions of grief of the grown children of the deceased had me in tears also remembering my loss.
When I went to Guyana last year October to lay Papa to rest I slept in the bed where he had spent his last few months of life. It was bitter sweet. I had been planning to go to Guyana to spend some time with him in November not knowing that he would be gone before I could get there. I have asked myself innumerable times since October 2016 if there was something I could have done or said that would have encouraged him to hang on a bit longer. Would it have helped if I had travelled to Guyana in August or September? I did not tell him that I was planning to travel to Guyana in November. Maybe if he had known he would have waited, held on a bit longer. Papa was greatly distressed because he had been defrauded of his house and land by a group of unconscionable crooks who targeted my vulnerable elderly father. Papa felt hopeless and helpless even though we told him we were fighting to recover his house. Oh how I hate and despise the people who defrauded him and I hold them responsible for him no longer being here with us. The avaricious, covetous members of the Scipio family; Carlotta Scipio Bowman (Toronto), Compton Scipio (New York) and Tamara Bowman (who now occupies my father's house in Guyana with her brood) I hold responsible for my father's passing. In October 2016 I remember travelling from Berbice to Timheri airport on my return to Canada after the funeral and as we drove past 56/57 Atlantic Ville, East Coast Demerara I was overcome with anger and grief. I was driving past Papa’s house that the thieves have occupied and live with no conscience, no sense of right and wrong.
On Father’s Day 2017; the first Father’s Day of my life where Papa will not be around I comfort myself with memories of my childhood when my father was a young man. Memories of a time when he seemed invincible and I could not imagine life without Papa. Even when Papa was lying in hospital helpless after the stroke I did not imagine he would ever be gone from my life. He was supposed to live to 100 at least. He comes from a family with longevity. His grandfather Kelly Murphy Jonas after whom he was named lived past 100 years old.
My Papa is gone but his memory lives on when I look at members of my family. Father’s Day will never be the same for me because my father is no longer here. Those who still have their fathers will celebrate Father’s Day and those whose fathers have transitioned will hopefully have great memories and reminiscences on Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day!
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