DEAD FATHER
The greatest gift I ever had came from God; and I call him Dad! – Author Unknown
No doubt about it, our fathers play a prime role in our lives, they lead our way, teach us “right from wrong “, help us to socialize with our siblings, and often get real! They take us out to play, out to task, read us bed time stories, and tell us off when we stick our fingers in the jam jar once too often!
They could be absent, critical, bad tempered and doting. They could give us our sense of basic values. They could also drive us bonkers with possessiveness and the strong, silent treatment but we always love them.
Famous Fathers
Some of the most famous father figures are controversial. Think Homer Simpson, stupid and a slob, and then poor old King Lear, a wacky ruler who made the biggest mistake of his life when he divided his kingdom between his three daughters and started a never-ending tragedy. However, “the mother of all bad fathers” has to be Darth Vader the cruel, dark and mean daddy of purposeful and pure Luke Skywalker; that Father and Son relationship would have needed years of psychoanalysis to resolve. But we hit the high note in “bad dads” when we hone into Don Vito Corleone in the Godfather. The ultimate Mafia boss, the kind of dad that was mad, bad and dangerous to know.
It is true that some dads get bad press, but the fact is it does not matter how hopeless our dads might have been, when we see our dead father laid out before us, all our father daughter/son issues melt like ice in the sun, in fact to see our dead father is to see a dead true friend. Our dead father will haunt our memories and leave us heartbroken with a hole inside our psyches that few could fill. Yes there are bad dads, but there are also so many good ones. Dads that listen to us in silent helplessness as we sob about the nasty boyfriend. Dads who stand up for us when the world turns against us.
George Foreman was a great dad, he wrote a book about fatherhood, and how dads need to spend more time with their kids. Nelson Mandela was the freedom father of South Africa. Apparently J.R.R Tolkien was a wonderful father and wrote many a beautiful letter to his sons. A A Milne wrote the Winnie the Pooh stories for his little boy, and based the character of Christopher Robin on his son’s antics. But there are other types of fathers, ideological fathers like Martin Luther King, who was the spiritual father of the American Civil Rights movement, and Gandhi who became the Father of India when he sought freedom from British rule by peaceful means. But think media dads too, for example Chelsea and Bill Clinton, Bruce Willis and his daughter Rumer, Paul and Stella McCartney, The Coppola father and daughter duo. Think Keith and Lily Allen, think Kelly and Ozzy. Ben Affleck describes the relationship with his daughter as “the best thing that could have ever happened to me!” Brad, according to Angelina Jolie, spoils his kids rotten. Dads abound, mostly good, sometimes unusual, sometimes controversial but always lovable. As a result the last thing we want to do is kiss our dead father goodbye forever.
At times like these, it might be a good idea to talk to a therapist or counsellor. Grief counselling does help. We can recall as another listens, and work through our grief. We can remember how dad used to get on our nerves, how dad used to make us laugh. We could even call an online empath or medium, who could help us connect to Dad in the other dimensions. To think that our beloved daddy could live on in the afterlife might give us great comfort. Life is indeed a mystery, none of us are here forever, but the one person who we will want to live till the end of time most probably is our father. Maybe because “our hearts belong to daddy!”
