I’d like to start my blog with an ending. It’s necessary to honour those who have gone before us and in a world where (shameless) self-promotion has become a synonym for success, I’d like to make a counter-claim: I am already successful. Because someone loved me and knew me and invested in me until the very end.

dad

Barry Himsworth 16/05/1946 – 12/05/2023

My dad would’ve turned 77 this week. He passed end of last week after a two and a half year fight against acute myeloid leukemia…he was given six months.

This is my first experience of someone I was very close to passing away.

He’s gone, but what I see today is that his body was merely an anchor in time, a tether to the material world, and most recently—brutally, painfully—a dead weight. So…now his “spirit” is free.

Without becoming esoteric or definitely teleological about it (although I’m open on that point), he is now clearer and more present in my thoughts. Or, spiritually speaking, my heart can converse with him, easily, now that this is no longer physically possible. It might just be that the acute focus on his suffering is giving way to a holistic view of his life, and our relationship was a large part of that—not always close, emotionally—but always there. It might just be that I now have to fall back on my picture, my recollection of him, because that is all I’ve got. But I probably always interacted using that image of him, which surely diverged from reality (sometimes idealised, sometimes unfairly negativistic). One would always do well to remember that how we see and are moved by people is not necessarily who they really are.

So, what remains? To my surprise, I can see the contours, the abuttal of our lives (the heart has a topography) and I’m so very grateful for him, who he was and what he stood for. He lived life well, ofttimes under challenging circumstances, and he was there for me when I needed him. I could complain that I missed emotional bonding, but I can see how bonded we were. By the routine and structure, by knowing where I was with him. By talking about life, the kids, the weather. His values live on and will be improved and refined in his children’s lives and his children’s children’s lives etc.:

Constancy
Integrity
Loyalty
Kindness
Generosity
Humility

And for me personally:
his northern-English soul,
his irreverent sense of humour,
his love of music,
his constant tinkering and DIY-ing and
his complete immunity to ostentatiousness.

Brilliant.

Thanks, dad.