I realise that you can’t stop being a father once you’ve been one. Well, I can’t stop being a father.
I realise that you can’t stop being a father once you’ve been one. Well, I can’t stop being a father. Despite the fact that my daughter died in 2004.
So, most Father’s Days I sit looking at a bottle of whiskey and thinking about playing Joy Division and Mötorhead. Instead I drink green tea and listen to Kohachiro Miyata.
I don’t think that Zuzu would be too keen on whiskey and Motorhead right now. I have her face in my heart right now. I have her smell – not the smell of her vomit or her tube-feed – but the smell of her just out of the bath, lying on my chest drying off.
I played her Miyata-san only occasionally; once when she had bitten down on her finger and couldn’t unlock her jaw; once to calm me down after another night of bed changing when she couldn’t understand my frustration and I could but I couldn’t get her to understand so she laughed.
I wanted to calm down, I listened to Miyata-san and Honshirabe.
The last note, however, brings me back to here and to staring at whiskey.
I can smoke now on a Sunday afternoon, and I can get drunk, smother my heart in alcohol. I did that. It destroyed me. I don’t do it now.
Maybe I will or maybe I’ll listen to some more Miyata and drink some green tea.
If I think that had I never had a daughter like Zuzu, I wouldn’t be able to miss her so much. The fact that I do miss her so much, the fact that I am still her father, the fact that was with me in life makes missing her worthwhile.
So, I suppose that Father’s Day is a day for fathers to remember their children, no matter where they are.
