Arkell's Ark: Words Of Regret
…Perhaps due to my lack of understanding, or sensitivity, or whatever, we were never destined to be close. There was always a bridge that he was unable and I was perhaps unwilling, to cross. So there was never that connection that a father and son ought to have…
Ian Arkell regrets his failure when he was younger to understand and communicate with his father.
I think it’s a sad and regrettable fact of life that sometimes we only understand our parents when they’re no longer around. The idiosyncratic or eccentric behaviours that may have embarrassed or dismayed us over the years seem in retrospect, understandable; either in light of a subsequent diagnoses or the understanding that only comes with the passage of time.
My father served in the Western Desert during the Second War and whether or not he actually was involved in combat is a moot point. He would have had us believe that such combat was far from moot, though from what reading I’ve done, as well as anecdotal reports of contemporaries, I think his role was somewhat more passive.
He had joined the regular army in 1936 and by the outbreak of war had risen to the rank of Sergeant Major. The war for my father and perhaps others was the highlight of his life; if war can ever be seen as a highlight. Following his discharge in 1946 he meandered through a succession of unrewarding and basic jobs and with a young son and wife to think about, entered into a business venture which took all his savings, and following its demise, his self respect.
I can recall as a young boy, barely eight or nine, being aware of behaviours that my father exhibited that were certainly outside the norm and although not quite understanding adult humour and conversation that clearly, became aware that in many cases his actions, comments and ideas were the cause of much merriment and shaking of heads.
I think it was either kindness or ignorance that allowed his behaviour to be labelled as having its origins in a ‘war neurosis’.
This all embracing diagnosis was superseded later as early onset Alzheimer’s and even later as society became more understanding, depression.
Perhaps due to my lack of understanding, or sensitivity, or whatever, we were never destined to be close. There was always a bridge that he was unable and I was perhaps unwilling, to cross. So there was never that connection that a father and son ought to have.
But I understand him now in a way that was not possible when he was alive; understand his depression and the sometimes manic moments followed by periods of brooding silence that hung like dark clouds above our life.
He has been gone for over twenty years. I said an almost obligatory farewell during the funeral and have not been to see him since. I think of him rarely and yet his influence is with me every day. In my own early morning wakening hours, at 4 a.m. or thereabouts, I think of many things. It is, depending on the state of play within my life, a time of recollection, review, self criticism and occasionally a moment when some of the pieces of the puzzle slip neatly together and the picture is that much clearer.
In that dream like state some months ago, we spoke. I came upon him in a field where he was sitting on a log, head buried in his hands, lost in another world. I watched him for a moment, unable as in the past, to start a conversation. He finally looked up, gazed at me for a while and said simply, without a greeting or hullo, ‘I’m sorry son, I did my best’. I should have held his hand and said ‘I understand’.
The universal words of regret, ‘I should have’, ‘wished I had’, ‘if only’.
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