"And when did you last see your father?"
Dear Dad,
I think I might be getting to a “certain age”.
Physically there are the usual suspects. Mostly grey to white on top. I’m waging a kind of trench warfare on the trouser waist-band (you know the sort of thing – short, sharp, bloody conflicts for little gain or loss.) I have this piffling issue with the middle finger on my right hand, for some reason it doesn’t want to bend as well as it used to. Oh, and I’ve gone and got a pillow to help me sleep at night without waking up with a stiff neck. Par for the course I guess.
Then there’s the memory. I had something really enthralling to say about memory but it seems to have slipped my mind for the moment. Never mind, if it’s that important I guess it will come back to me. I have a lot of stuff out there at the moment. I’m considering patenting the “Pete Hardy Custom-Built Black-Hole Filing Cabinet”. It will provide handy storage for all those lost things, thoughts and ideas that were so very important but have been miss-laid, who knows where, who knows when. It may even prove to be a springboard for a modern day “Peter Pan” featuring “Lost Ponderings” in place of “Lost Boys”.
I’ve been through all the lines.
“Whatever you are looking for is just not where you are looking for it now.” (Dead helpful!)
“Where did you last have it?” (Thank you very much!)
“Just stop thinking and it will come back to you”. (Some people are of the opinion that I stopped thinking a long time ago and look where it’s got me!)
“It can’t be all that important or you wouldn’t have lost it in the first place.” (So where does that leave us when we lose our heart to someone, or we lose our mind, or our shirt on a horse, or track of time?)
Sometimes, I grant you, things go missing and we settle on a kind of “lost stuff truce.” A ceasefire on the searching front brings a temporary peaceful lull in the “Have you seen my…” daily / hourly warfare that is life. I thought that only teenage boys suffered from this particular ailment.
“Dad! Have you seen my…”
“Have you looked under the bed?
“Yeah!”
“How about with the pile of dirty washing on your Hi-Fi?”
“Grunt!”
“Well in the drawer?...What do you mean, you can’t get the drawer open?”
The standard conclusion to this exchange is that you climb the stairs, enter boy’s room (following a suitable course of vaccinations) and immediately locate said lost item just beneath the pile of washing which has remained untouched save for the prerequisite cursory stir at the top.
Of course the old adage “It isn’t lost, it’s just not where you are looking for it” eventually comes into its own. A case in point is the old friend who rang up out of the blue. Like, over 20 years out of the blue!
“Hello. Sorry to bother you. Is that the Hardy household?”
“It might be.”
“Ah! Well, is there a Mr. Hardy there?”
“Could be.”
“A Mr. Peter Hardy?”
“Possibly. Who’s asking?” (This born of interminable conversations with people trying to sell me the latest in underwater ballroom dancing kit, or rubber spanners for dealing with awkwardly placed plumbing joints.)
“It’s Barney. Barney Coward.”
“You’re kidding. We haven’t seen each other since…”
The upshot is that we did get together. It was as if we had never been apart. The story really began when Barney cleared out his office. Would you believe it he said. All these years I spent looking for your telephone number. All those times I thought about the old days and wanted to get in touch. Could he find that number? Not likely! Till the day of the office clear-out. Emptying a box file Barney came across an address book. He claimed that it fell open at my name with an address which fitted our family three house moves ago!
“So on the off-chance that you’d kept your old telephone number I just gave it a whirl” he said. “And would you believe it man? There you were.”
See? I wasn’t lost. I simply wasn’t where Barney was looking at the time.
Lately I’ve been especially blessed by my wife. She hates clutter with a vengeance. Of course, like many of these attitudes in life it all stems from childhood. Her mum stored things up. Well you would, wouldn’t you if you had lived through two world wars? She stored tinned salmon in the wardrobe “Just in case”, and shoes two sizes too small “Well you never know, do you?” The upshot is that Ruth was minimalist before there was minimalist and there is little chance of Feng Shui catching on at our house since I believe it hangs on the principle of rearranging things to some deep spiritual effect. If there is little or nothing to rearrange…Well, I rest my case.
Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. The silver lining in point is the welter of “lost” items turning up as a result of the latest sort out. All manner of vital things have come to light. Not, of course, lost at all. They were simply not in the place I was looking.
Pieces of slag from the bottom of the James River, Virginia, USA. Wondrous to gaze upon (even better to handle with their silky-smooth surfaces.) I always felt they looked fetching when tastefully placed on a hearth or mantle-piece. On the other hand, our daughter said that they looked like something a dog had just evacuated onto a pavement. Thus proving, that beauty is indeed, in the eye of the beholder.
The Time Fuse from a First World War shell. Not of its purpose an attractive object. Nonetheless it is of historical note and provides something of a talking point when displayed on a widow-sill. (A council of war was called when the said fuse came to light again and it was decided by one vote to one vote that it should reside in future on the desk of my town office, not, note well, on the desk of my home office!)
I could go, some would say, at length. I withhold, for instance, any comment on my fossil collection or the particularly fine examples I have of old receipt books. These being the really delightful, not to say, in their time, useful artifacts that came with a piece of carbon paper inserted to make copies – one for the customer and one for the retailer. There is also something endearing (nay, even enduring) about the blue marbling effect on the covers. I mean to say, who would go to all that trouble now? There definitely remains something to be said for the good old days.
Enough, the point is made. Things not lost, not even miss-laid, but simply not in the place we are looking for them.
So far, so ordinary. My item related amnesia has, I fear, moved on to a second stage. My new condition came to light only a short time ago.
I guess I’m back to discuss loss with you again.
You remember when my other dad died. You were very good to me then, and lots of things fell into place for me when we talked it all through. Your patience seemed never-ending at the time. I’m just sorry it took so long for me to get that one straightened out.
Well the fact is that I’ve recently become orphaned (in a manner of speaking.) I only say “in a manner of speaking” since I seem to have managed to hold on to you. Or is it that you have held on to me? No matter. To put it bluntly, my mum died.
Now, in this matter of the recent bereavement, you have already proved your weight in gold. The bottom line is that I just know that it is, and that it will be, alright. It’s just the old memory problem rearing its head in a new and somewhat disturbing way. A close, caring, and undoubtedly well-meaning friend asked how I was doing.
“Well you know, I’m good. My other dad has been looking after me. Things were as good as they could be in the circumstances. Very peaceful. Not a lot of loose ends. We were all there when the time came. Thankfully mum was compos mentis. Not a lot of suffering. Like people say, “She’s in a better place now.” (I mean to say, almost anywhere might be better than Intensive Care.) It’s just…”
“Sorry? Just what?”
“Hard to put it into words just now.”
“Try if you like.”
“I’m not sure I understand myself yet. I know I’ve lost something but I’m not quite sure what it is. If you see what I mean?”
“Hmm.”
Well there we are then. Memory Loss, Stage Two – not, in fact, forgetting where you put something, but instead not being entirely sure of what it is you’ve lost!
This, I think, is where you really come in to your own. I remember feeling pretty lost myself once. Actually more than once. And for some considerable time. I seem to recall that when we got down to brass tacks, you and I, the issue wasn’t so much my state of lost-ness. You went to considerable lengths, if I remember rightly, to get to the bottom of just what it was I had actually lost. As I got clearer in my own mind about that, well then my state of being lost came ever so slowly into focus. Once again, you played the ace card. Ever so surely, you manage to dig below the surface, scratch where it itches, soothe where it aches, etc,etc,etc.
So then, memory loss, another of your specialties. Can we skip stage one? The truth is I know exactly where I lost my mum. Maybe I’m beginning to think like you (like father like son huh?) Stage two, begin!
Now what is it exactly I seem to have lost?
Please, please, please, write soon
Love, you know who.
I think I might be getting to a “certain age”.
Physically there are the usual suspects. Mostly grey to white on top. I’m waging a kind of trench warfare on the trouser waist-band (you know the sort of thing – short, sharp, bloody conflicts for little gain or loss.) I have this piffling issue with the middle finger on my right hand, for some reason it doesn’t want to bend as well as it used to. Oh, and I’ve gone and got a pillow to help me sleep at night without waking up with a stiff neck. Par for the course I guess.
Then there’s the memory. I had something really enthralling to say about memory but it seems to have slipped my mind for the moment. Never mind, if it’s that important I guess it will come back to me. I have a lot of stuff out there at the moment. I’m considering patenting the “Pete Hardy Custom-Built Black-Hole Filing Cabinet”. It will provide handy storage for all those lost things, thoughts and ideas that were so very important but have been miss-laid, who knows where, who knows when. It may even prove to be a springboard for a modern day “Peter Pan” featuring “Lost Ponderings” in place of “Lost Boys”.
I’ve been through all the lines.
“Whatever you are looking for is just not where you are looking for it now.” (Dead helpful!)
“Where did you last have it?” (Thank you very much!)
“Just stop thinking and it will come back to you”. (Some people are of the opinion that I stopped thinking a long time ago and look where it’s got me!)
“It can’t be all that important or you wouldn’t have lost it in the first place.” (So where does that leave us when we lose our heart to someone, or we lose our mind, or our shirt on a horse, or track of time?)
Sometimes, I grant you, things go missing and we settle on a kind of “lost stuff truce.” A ceasefire on the searching front brings a temporary peaceful lull in the “Have you seen my…” daily / hourly warfare that is life. I thought that only teenage boys suffered from this particular ailment.
“Dad! Have you seen my…”
“Have you looked under the bed?
“Yeah!”
“How about with the pile of dirty washing on your Hi-Fi?”
“Grunt!”
“Well in the drawer?...What do you mean, you can’t get the drawer open?”
The standard conclusion to this exchange is that you climb the stairs, enter boy’s room (following a suitable course of vaccinations) and immediately locate said lost item just beneath the pile of washing which has remained untouched save for the prerequisite cursory stir at the top.
Of course the old adage “It isn’t lost, it’s just not where you are looking for it” eventually comes into its own. A case in point is the old friend who rang up out of the blue. Like, over 20 years out of the blue!
“Hello. Sorry to bother you. Is that the Hardy household?”
“It might be.”
“Ah! Well, is there a Mr. Hardy there?”
“Could be.”
“A Mr. Peter Hardy?”
“Possibly. Who’s asking?” (This born of interminable conversations with people trying to sell me the latest in underwater ballroom dancing kit, or rubber spanners for dealing with awkwardly placed plumbing joints.)
“It’s Barney. Barney Coward.”
“You’re kidding. We haven’t seen each other since…”
The upshot is that we did get together. It was as if we had never been apart. The story really began when Barney cleared out his office. Would you believe it he said. All these years I spent looking for your telephone number. All those times I thought about the old days and wanted to get in touch. Could he find that number? Not likely! Till the day of the office clear-out. Emptying a box file Barney came across an address book. He claimed that it fell open at my name with an address which fitted our family three house moves ago!
“So on the off-chance that you’d kept your old telephone number I just gave it a whirl” he said. “And would you believe it man? There you were.”
See? I wasn’t lost. I simply wasn’t where Barney was looking at the time.
Lately I’ve been especially blessed by my wife. She hates clutter with a vengeance. Of course, like many of these attitudes in life it all stems from childhood. Her mum stored things up. Well you would, wouldn’t you if you had lived through two world wars? She stored tinned salmon in the wardrobe “Just in case”, and shoes two sizes too small “Well you never know, do you?” The upshot is that Ruth was minimalist before there was minimalist and there is little chance of Feng Shui catching on at our house since I believe it hangs on the principle of rearranging things to some deep spiritual effect. If there is little or nothing to rearrange…Well, I rest my case.
Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. The silver lining in point is the welter of “lost” items turning up as a result of the latest sort out. All manner of vital things have come to light. Not, of course, lost at all. They were simply not in the place I was looking.
Pieces of slag from the bottom of the James River, Virginia, USA. Wondrous to gaze upon (even better to handle with their silky-smooth surfaces.) I always felt they looked fetching when tastefully placed on a hearth or mantle-piece. On the other hand, our daughter said that they looked like something a dog had just evacuated onto a pavement. Thus proving, that beauty is indeed, in the eye of the beholder.
The Time Fuse from a First World War shell. Not of its purpose an attractive object. Nonetheless it is of historical note and provides something of a talking point when displayed on a widow-sill. (A council of war was called when the said fuse came to light again and it was decided by one vote to one vote that it should reside in future on the desk of my town office, not, note well, on the desk of my home office!)
I could go, some would say, at length. I withhold, for instance, any comment on my fossil collection or the particularly fine examples I have of old receipt books. These being the really delightful, not to say, in their time, useful artifacts that came with a piece of carbon paper inserted to make copies – one for the customer and one for the retailer. There is also something endearing (nay, even enduring) about the blue marbling effect on the covers. I mean to say, who would go to all that trouble now? There definitely remains something to be said for the good old days.
Enough, the point is made. Things not lost, not even miss-laid, but simply not in the place we are looking for them.
So far, so ordinary. My item related amnesia has, I fear, moved on to a second stage. My new condition came to light only a short time ago.
I guess I’m back to discuss loss with you again.
You remember when my other dad died. You were very good to me then, and lots of things fell into place for me when we talked it all through. Your patience seemed never-ending at the time. I’m just sorry it took so long for me to get that one straightened out.
Well the fact is that I’ve recently become orphaned (in a manner of speaking.) I only say “in a manner of speaking” since I seem to have managed to hold on to you. Or is it that you have held on to me? No matter. To put it bluntly, my mum died.
Now, in this matter of the recent bereavement, you have already proved your weight in gold. The bottom line is that I just know that it is, and that it will be, alright. It’s just the old memory problem rearing its head in a new and somewhat disturbing way. A close, caring, and undoubtedly well-meaning friend asked how I was doing.
“Well you know, I’m good. My other dad has been looking after me. Things were as good as they could be in the circumstances. Very peaceful. Not a lot of loose ends. We were all there when the time came. Thankfully mum was compos mentis. Not a lot of suffering. Like people say, “She’s in a better place now.” (I mean to say, almost anywhere might be better than Intensive Care.) It’s just…”
“Sorry? Just what?”
“Hard to put it into words just now.”
“Try if you like.”
“I’m not sure I understand myself yet. I know I’ve lost something but I’m not quite sure what it is. If you see what I mean?”
“Hmm.”
Well there we are then. Memory Loss, Stage Two – not, in fact, forgetting where you put something, but instead not being entirely sure of what it is you’ve lost!
This, I think, is where you really come in to your own. I remember feeling pretty lost myself once. Actually more than once. And for some considerable time. I seem to recall that when we got down to brass tacks, you and I, the issue wasn’t so much my state of lost-ness. You went to considerable lengths, if I remember rightly, to get to the bottom of just what it was I had actually lost. As I got clearer in my own mind about that, well then my state of being lost came ever so slowly into focus. Once again, you played the ace card. Ever so surely, you manage to dig below the surface, scratch where it itches, soothe where it aches, etc,etc,etc.
So then, memory loss, another of your specialties. Can we skip stage one? The truth is I know exactly where I lost my mum. Maybe I’m beginning to think like you (like father like son huh?) Stage two, begin!
Now what is it exactly I seem to have lost?
Please, please, please, write soon
Love, you know who.
