I finally got around to sending some photos to a long lost relative of my father’s in Holland today and re-read through some of the information about the trauma and loss in my Dad’s past that he never got to share with us… Dad lost his father at the age of 10 in 1930 and left his family behind in the Netherlands at the tender age of 18, narrowly escaping the Nazi occupation and only returning for a couple of visits.
I had my first visit to Holland in 1985 with my Mum (the year he died) and have only been back two more times. Each time I felt I found more of who I am deep inside, I found shoes and clothes to fit my long tall body and could look people in the eye. I did not feel as out of place as I did growing up in Australia during the 1960s and 70s. The Dutch part of us seemed to be carried in the fact my parents became shopkeepers and merchants. I also see the Dutch influence in my brother’s architectural designs even though sadly (despite a lot of European travel) he has never wanted to visit his father’s home country or know much about his life there, like the rest of his family. I guess we are all different in this regard but I feel myself through my Dutchness very much and my last partner used to often call me ‘The Dutchess’ which makes me smile.
I am thinking of my Dad today and I was with him in spirit in the afternoon yesterday while weeding the garden. When Dad got home from work at 5 pm each night he never said much to me, he just walked up the hall to his room, got changed, put his wallet in the cupboard and went out into the garden not saying much. I felt we didn’t connect but neither did I make the effort to go out to be with him in the garden. It was a distant relationship but one of underground connection and in adolescence we had clashes over many issues and he would not let me continue my teacher education studies after things got so traumatic in the aftermath of my sister’s illness. I repressed the feelings around all of this, as well as other harsh treatment for a long time. It has taken time to unpack what happened in the aftermath as my alcoholism grew along with my deep distrust in and fear of life, achievement and men (all Mars issues : in my astrology chart my Mars is quite ‘debilitated’).
Dad was by all accounts very serious and wanted to escape his poverty, sadly the poverty aspect has dogged us and there has been wounding over overachievement and work addiction at the cost of deeper emotional connections. Its very sad to me that Dad never spoke of his sisters and my brother still maintains his distance while trying his best to help his two living sisters where he can. Maybe we put him in a father role or he thought he had to assume this but it would be nicer to just be good friends, so I reach out to him when I can over in America where he spends a part of the year.
I realise now I can have a relationship with my father inside. I can draw comfort from the growing understanding that he loved me but struggled to know how to relate, as I did. I think of how he let me work hard to earn the money to go overseas by doing two jobs while telling my Mum before he died that he would match what I earned when I left for the trip. Sadly he died before that happened.
Deep in my soul I miss my Dad every day though I don’t always think of him every day, but it’s in the garden between 4 and 6 pm that my thoughts turn to him, I think of the struggles I had to connect to, and trust men and of the anger, fear, longing to be seen or confusion I so often brought to those relationships. I know deep down we both did the best we can. It was lovely to find this photo of him today and I wanted to share it. In it I see a young boy with so many hopes and dreams, I see a vulnerable person on the brink of his life and in a fight to survive after leaving his homeland far behind. I see a person too, not just my father.
Emerging From The Dark Night 