Summer 2009 - That's when it all went fuck up

I’ll never forget the summer of 2009. It’s etched in my memory like a horrible piece of art. I suppose the best place to start is on 15th June. This is my wife's birthday - although we were still just engaged at this point - and after treating her to whatever she wanted to buy, we then headed out for a hearty lunch and a few beers (that was just for me though, obviously). We took our seats with our drinks, ordered food and started to enjoy a lovely time together just the two of us. We’d bought our own hown the previous summer and money was a bit tighter so such treats were rarer than they used to be. This was back in the day before our wonderful children came along so we still had some sort of social life. We were so happy. Our own house, plans to get married then to start a family. It felt like we were just about to start a really memorable part of our lives. Sadly it got off to the worst possible start. 

As I sat there supping my beer and waiting for our food to arrive, I received a text message from my brother telling me to ring my mum straight away. Although I thought that a bit odd, I did as instructed and called her. She was in bits on the phone and I struggled to understand her but soon got the message that my father had high stage lung cancer. I was stunned. I told her we’d be right there so we paid for our food, which he never got to eat, and left. I remember the waitress said she could see I was upset so I could take my pint with me. That’s kind of amusing looking back now but it just goes to show how alcohol is the go to “solution” in any situation. 

We got in the car and by this point I’m starting to fall apart. I’d seen my best friend die slowly with testicular cancer less than 9 years earlier and I couldn’t see this happen again to someone else I love. I just kept saying to Jen “I can’t do this again” and she tried hard to calm me before we arrived at my mums house. She did a pretty good job too because when we got there I knew I had to be strong for mum. She looked broken and I’ll never forget the look on her face for the rest of my life. Slowly my brother and sisters arrived and we began to process this horrible news. 

My dad hadn’t been right for a while. He’d had a lot of back and shoulder pain which he couldn’t cope with all that well. My father was a strong man so for him to be floored by anything was so unlike him. He’d had scans a week or so before he was diagnosed and in fact we’d dropped him and my mum off at the hospital that very morning to get the results. I thought he’d ruined a couple of vertebrae and would need his back almost re built in places. That was my worst case scenario and I never thought it was cancer. I’ll always remember that evening when I did what I always did at difficult times, tried to drink it all away. I know now that never works and in the small hours of the next day I woke Jen up in absolute tears. My dad was the strongest man I knew and this was simply unfair. 

We went to see him that afternoon in Basingstoke Hospital and, typical dad, he just looked fed up that he couldn’t go to work or the pub!!! He was only placed in the trauma ward so he could be given a bed but he was soon transferred to Southampton General Hospital where he began radiotherapy. I don’t know whether the hospital thought they could cure him or if they were just trying to give him more time but I was never confident he would get through it. It just seemed too ill and having seen all this before I just knew how this was going to end. 

He was soon given the prognosis that we all feared but, certainly in my case, expected. That he was too ill and the cancer was too advanced for him to recover. He was provided with a hospital style bed and was allowed to come home. I remember one time going round to see him and he was trying to walk with a frame the hospital lent to him. He looked so frail but maybe he thought if he could build up some strength then maybe he could stay with us for as long as possible. I don’t know but it was a horrible sight to see him so weak and vulnerable. 

Apart from the occasional ambulance trip to hospital, he was at home until the end. I used to go round there after work to see him and because he was so pumped up with morphine he seemed like his old self. Laughing and joking together like it always was whenever we were at the pub together. I know this was due to the drugs but it was actually nice to spend that time with him. Unfortunately it was short lived and one August day mum asked if I was going to see him that evening after work. I remarked that I wasn’t sure that I could make it that particular day but she told me that I had to go round there because it might be my last chance to see and speak to him. 

I didn’t want to remember him the way he was in that bed but I went round and he looked done. He just slept and slept. Maybe he was in a coma but either way we would just sit and talk to him and hoped he could at least hear us. That evening me and my brother got absolutely hammered and we thought he would not make it through to morning. I phoned my boss the next day and told him what was happening and that I wouldn’t be in that day because I didn’t want to get the call while I was working. We thought it would be a matter of hours but we were wrong. 

Now, my dad was a stubborn bastard!! We all seemed to be waiting for the inevitable but he just kept hanging on. Slowly My brother and sisters returned to work but I decided to stay so mum wasn’t on her own. Mum always wanted someone in the front room with dad at all times because she didn’t want him to go when he was on his own. So, one day I went round there so she could have a break and as I walked into the room I thought “He’s not breathing anymore, He’s gone”. I’m ashamed to admit that panic got the better of me and I had to make an excuse to use the toilet so my mum had to go back in there. When I returned mum had realised that her husband of over 40 years had passed away. She kept asking me to tell her she was wrong but of course I could not do that. I hate myself for the selfish act I did that day. I’ve carried it with me ever since and it was only in early 2020 that I told someone about it for the first time. I was seeing my counsellor and I let this huge secret out. I was in bits talking about my dad and I didn’t understand why I was still so affected by his death after nearly 11 years.  Maybe it was my punishment for my actions on the day he died. I’m so, so sorry mum. 

The truth is that by trying to drink the pain of my dad's death away, all I was doing was burying it deep down within me and when I stopped drinking all that grief came flooding out. I’ve learned that when bad things happen - and they will happen from time to time - you have to feel the pain that comes with it. That’s the healthy way to deal with things.  By using alcohol as a coping mechanism all that does is kick the can further down the road where it waits for you to either kick it again or finally deal with it. Through the clarity that being sober brings I now know how to cope with times of great heartbreak. You’ve got to feel it to move through it. 

In the years that followed, because of the habitual home drinking that began that summer and due to the financial pressures we were under after getting married then becoming parents in 2011, home drinking became the norm for me and I got stuck in that pattern until it all came crashing down around me in September 2019. I’m not using my fathers passing as an excuse for my later alcohol dependency. That’s my problem and I own it completely. 

I’ll finish by saying that I really wish my dad was still around and I hope he’s proud of me for the life that I’ve built for myself and for giving up alcohol and slowly getting through all the problems that entails. 

I love you and I miss you everyday dad. 

Phil.