whensaturnreturns

For the first few years of my life I was definitely a daddy’s girl. I famously screamed as a child when he tried a new lewk and shaved off his facial hair and refused to be held by him until he grew it back. We used to go for Sunday morning walks to the news agency and he would listen to me talk a lot of boring shit about what my favorite animal was for that week, why we needed to save the whales and how I desperately wanted to be a vet. And even though he wasn’t overly traditional he was still an Indian dad at heart so he’d always try and sell me on becoming a “horse vet” because they made the more money than regular ones. He would always clock me standing in front of the chocolates, staring forlornly until he’d say “okay this one time” except I pulled that trick every time.

He would regularly lobby on my behalf to my mum about buying me a dog, using my veterinary aspirations as the main counter argument to her very valid point that the only person who would end up looking after a dog would be her (which is exactly what did happen when she finally caved and bought us a dog). In the interim he impressively did managed to talk her into allowing a guinea pig, rabbit and a duck into my clutches.

My idea that he was a good person was reinforced by how many gifts he would come home with from his patients. Baked cakes, cookies and trays and trays of mangoes in summer time. They also did a lot of favours for him like setting up free photo shoots for me so I could gather enough head shots to submit to the Dolly Model competition (sadly I lost to Miranda Kerr) or hiring me to be the host of a talent show at Rooty Hill RSL when my dreams of being a vet were taken over by a vision of being a famous VJ in my late teens (the Dolly competition loss made me realize it was unlikely I’d ever be able to break into the prestigious modeling or acting industries but seeing Fuzzy host Video hits made me think that brown people were at least allowed to VJ in Australia)

He made friends everywhere we went, he could charm anyone. Every holiday he would spend time at the hotel bar or in the lobby chatting to members of staff and nek minit he would be bounding into our room as we were unpacking announcing we had gotten a room upgrade. For the rest of the holiday every member of staff he passed would greet him like an old friend they had known for years.

But as I got older I started to notice that he wasn’t just chatting at the bar he was also drinking. Heavily. I realized while he was charming and a good talker he was also generous and a fun drunk and I suspect he mostly won people over by leaving big tips as well as making them laugh during his drinking sessions.

When you think of an alcoholic parent most people think of the movie or tv ones that yell and are mean but my dad was, for a while, a fun drunk. He was happy, carefree and unpredictable and rarely raised his voice. He would just be drunk and follow you around with his camera until you smiled for a photo. He would organise surprises like airport limo transfers (although the suspicious adult in me now assumes he did this so he could drink during the ride). He was increasingly extra.

But then as we got older and more aware of what was happening we had to spend increased amounts of time making sure he stayed sober and out of trouble. Nothing is sadder than the pity filled face of a bar tender serving your Dad coffee and trying not to make eye contact with teenage you as you sit and wait for him to sober up enough to stagger back to the hotel room with an arm slung over your shoulder. My sister actually cried once when Dad had to go on a work trip to America because she genuinely didn’t think he would survive or be capable of traveling alone without her and my mum to make sure he didn’t get drunk and drown in the sea, lose his passport, get hit by a bus etc etc.

Imagine being a grown ass parent and witnessing your 16 year old have a melt down because she doesn’t think you – a doctor who runs and his own GP practice – had the common sense required to travel solo. I’d like to think this would have been a wake up call for most parents but my dad wasn’t like most parents. I guess it was hard for him to comprehend her concern or really do anything like “most parents” because he wasn’t like most parents. He wasn’t even like most people. He didn’t know it then but he was living a life with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses that meant he didn’t process anything like other people did. He drank to self medicate. He also gambled, went on shopping sprees and pathologically lied. He had limited impulse control. He progressively became more manic and unpredictable until he eventually burned our family to the ground.

I hadn’t spoken to him for 7 years when he died and we were barely in touch before that. Even though he was finally getting treatment for his illness and been sober for some time I went through a lot of therapy to learn and understand that just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean they have to be a part of your life (boundaries are the key to happiness, I was saying it long before Brene y’all).

I don’t subscribe to the social norms that we should only say nice things about the dead out of respect, just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they suddenly got good (although Kobe proved to be the exception to this) but I was compelled to write this because I’m going to be a parent soon. By at least reflecting on Dad’s good qualities I hope to try and conjure some of those traits in myself as I’ve sure as hell spent a lot of time and money making sure I don’t repeat the bad! I’ll try and be calm like he was and only ever lose my temper when they do something really bad (given how much I yell at Archie now though makes me think this is an extremely unlikely goal but a girl can dream!) I’ll try and be fun and generous. I’ll do my best to listen to their boring pointless stories without rolling my eyes. I’ll support their hopes and dreams no matter how outlandish. However I will never ever repeat his mistake of buying a baby duck because they really are the worst pet of all time.

And if I’m lucky my son will inherit my dads smile, his intellect, patience and because I’m shallow hopefully also his height.