Grumpy Old Man

We don't get to pick our families, our blood and the truth of it is my old man was a curmudgeonly geezer, who didn't want to be called granddad but Grumpy, so in his later years that is what he was called.

He was a man full of contradictions. A conscientious dissenter to Vietnam - he told us he ran off to join the circus instead of the military. He was incredibly smart, but not formally educated. A great farm manager but with a mouth that often got him into trouble.

He lived much of his life politics adjacent - just never in the spotlight (never stopped him asking me to step into it).

He loved my mother, yet cheated on her - once that I knew of. Her death broke him. He loved his family - yet stole from them to feed his addiction and never seemed to put them first, rarely telling them he loved them, instead spending his time and focus on fighting for those he considered the underdog.

When I was younger, I wasn't sure why he didn't consider us the underdog, considering much of our life of lived close to that poverty line. Now I just figure he thought we were smart enough and tough enough to do what we needed to do and fight for ourselves.

He was a chronic alcoholic, mostly a functioning one, until his later years. Our mother left before he did and he was never the same. There were flashes of the old him, the vibrant man, but you had to get there early in the morning to catch them. His body clock never left the farm and the drinking would start before most people would have finished their first morning tea or coffee.

Still for all the hard memories in those last years there are some funny ones. He called me once, not long after we'd moved him closer to us. Some teenage boy and his trampy girlfriend tried to rob him after he'd been to a cash machine. He asked if he should have given the punk his money. I asked if he'd felt scared or threatened. He replied hell no, though his language was far more colourful. Said he'd given the stupid punk a piece of his mind... which I really wished I'd been there to witness.

Even now, when so much has faded, that conversation is still as vivid as it was the day after it happened. As is the time he called me to let me know he'd caught someone breaking into his house and he'd beaten the snot out of him when he'd caught them trying to escape over his back fence. he was quite happy to add regularly after that he never had any further problems in that respect.

In all that you have to remember that by this time my grumpy old man was in his seventies.

For all his faults and they were legion, I believe he loved us, and no-one supported us like he did. He had unwavering faith in us. Believed we could do very much whatever we put our minds too. He also wanted whatever that was, to be something we were passionate about, even if that passion project never paid out bills. When we faltered he encouraged in his own strange way.

He was rough, my dad, but for all the pain he caused he stood for something. I may not always agreed with that something, but you couldn't fault him for that. He was a loyal friend and though far from sharing my mother's faith, he never ridiculed those who had it. Well, not those who accepted him for the bastard he could be. Them he'd listen to, even if he didn't always agree with them.

My old man taught me to question, to learn and investigate for myself. He taught me every story has more than one side, and in his own way, taught me to believe in myself. he demonstrated the value of people and of using your voice, and if necessary using it for those who couldn't use their own.

He gave me a love of BBC shows, reading and speculative fiction, as well as demonstrating the power of words and sometimes the benefits of not taking oneself too seriously.

I think he'd be happy for me, and I know he'd be proud of me for what I've achieved and what I am doing.

Even with all the complicated emotions around the man I loved him. It was so hard to watch the deterioration of his brain, especially for a man so proud of his smarts.

His legacy, for all the rough spots, did leave some good. I have to believe that. Focus on the good, not that it means disregarding, or forgetting, the bad. Both sides of that man shaped me, tempered by the unfailing love of my mother, and I think I've turned out okay. I do know though that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks because I'm pretty happy with who I am and he taught me that that was all I needed to be.

I miss you dad.