See you later, Dad

Yesterday we said goodbye to my dad. He had a lovely, simple funeral that suited him perfectly. Around fifty people came along, and shared stories and memories of my dad, many of which have inspired me to write about our relationship, something I have only ever really touched on in the past.

Now that he’s gone I feel quite lost, but I also feel like I don’t have any real right to be. We weren’t conventionally close. You see, ours was not a traditional relationship. I only found out that the man who had brought me up wasn’t my dad when I was ten. The man I had always thought of as my dad was actually my step dad. And I then only met my biological dad, Eddie, when I was 17. I wrote more about that here.

Over those interim years I knew of my dad, but didn’t know him. I knew his name and I had a handful of photos of him but that was it. I knew where his sister worked and saw her there most weeks although we never spoke about my dad – just the usual shopkeeper-customer conversation about the weather etc.

I’d ask my mum questions about Eddie, which were often left unanswered. Mostly, I put him to the back of my mind to protect the man I thought of as my dad. I had a dad – I didn’t need another one and I didn’t want to hurt the man who had brought me up either. He’d always been a great dad to me.

But, when I was 16, my parents split up, and I was kicked out of home a few months later. Getting in contact with my biological dad seemed like the right thing to do. At that point, I had nothing to lose.

I wrote him a letter and sent it to his sister at her place of work, asking her to forward it to him. A couple of days later I had a card through the post from him and his wife, Jennie. It enclosed a photo of them together and a note asking me to call as soon as I got the card. They were so pleased I had got in touch.

I remember being so nervous during that phone call. I stuttered and my voice was shaking. It ended up being a short conversation, ending with a promise that he would come and meet me a few days later.

He came and met me after I finished work at Woolworths in Surbiton on a Thursday evening. He was literally standing in the street outside, it was so surreal. We went to McDonalds next door where he bought me a McChicken Sandwich, we talked and he gave me a bracelet his wife had chosen for me. The visit only lasted an hour or so but it was a pivotal part of our relationship.

What followed was five years of trying to get to know him and his lovely wife. I went to stay with them for a week soon after we first met and then I would talk to his wife all the time. She’d email me constantly, a couple of times a week, and ring me when she had time. If I didn’t pick up she’d send me an email and I’d ring back as soon as I could. At the end of the phone calls she’d pass me across to my dad for a quick chat before we’d ring off.

After five years of this I reached a point where I realised I didn’t know my dad any better than I had when we first met. We hadn’t spent enough time together to get to know each other. Dave and I went to stay with them and we had a few days of no holds barred conversation, eating, drinking and putting the world to rights.

We talked about the past, he answered all my questions the best he could and I told him that I needed more from our relationship. We needed to get to know each other to move forward. We agreed to put the past behind us, to start afresh and to try and be a family, whatever that looked like for us.

But, I really knew, even back then, that my dad wasn’t made to be a dad. He hadn’t had great role models growing up and he had missed all of my formative years. I don’t have any core memories of him and never spent enough quality time with him to build any. It was so hard to get to know each other and bond later in life, but we tried our best.

Over the following years my dad and Jennie moved around fairly often, owning shops or houses in little villages. Moving around – Cornwall, Somerset, Bristol. They made friends wherever they laid their hats and were such sociable people.

Wherever they lived I would get regular phone calls and emails, little cards through the post where Jennie had seen something and thought of me. She’d send me messages because she really wanted to. Because she loved me, cared about me and wanted to check in. I really loved that contact – her calling me Donna-do and that iconic laugh that she had. We fell into a happy routine where we would see each other every few months and talk regularly in between.

When LP was born they could not have been happier. They absolutely adored her and our contact stepped up a level. Whatever mistakes my dad had made with me, I was determined that he and his wife would have the opportunity to be grandparents, and they were ready for it. Jennie was born to be Nanna-Jen and she embraced that role with everything she had.

But, a few weeks after LP’s first birthday, when I was pregnant with Little Man, Jennie died suddenly. Even now, 13 years later, it pains me to think about. She was there one minute and gone the next. She was so full of life and my dad adored her. She was everything to him and her death hit him so hard. He was lost without her.

When Jennie went, so did my relationship with my dad. He had lost the love of his life and he was broken by grief. Our contact went from fortnightly phone calls, and Jennie’s emails in between, to a call every three months. Sometimes we’d go six months without talking. And we went years without physically seeing each other.

Since getting in contact with my dad, I always knew he loved me. And he adored the children. But, it was always his wife that pushed our relationship along. Who organised holidays and visits. Who made plans and who told him to call. She was the glue that held us together.

It took a long time for my dad and I to get into a better routine after she died. To both put more effort in and to find a way of rubbing along that worked for both of us without Jennie there to help.

I started to call him every couple of weeks on the school run. We’d be on the phone for no more than ten or fifteen minutes but it was enough to check in, share any news and to let each other know that we were thinking of them.

Every so often he’d send me a card in the post telling me to call when I had a chance. It was old fashioned but very much him. And I loved seeing his handwriting in amongst the post. He wouldn’t call me as he didn’t want to disturb me. The last time he actually called me was when he rang to say Jennie had died.

The pandemic took its toll on him. He turned into a bit of a recluse, staying mainly inside. And we didn’t see him for the whole of the pandemic – and a while either side.

But, at some point we started texting each other. My 70+ year old dad, texting. It always made me smile seeing his name appear, and I still have those messages on my phone. I will treasure them forever.

One day, in April 2023, when I hadn’t spoken to him for a couple of weeks, I had a message asking me to call when the kids weren’t around. And I just knew it was bad news.

Like with anything, he left it until the last minute to tell me. He never wanted to be a burden. He didn’t want me to worry. And, I think, after not being there for so many years, he didn’t want to have any more of a negative impact on my life. He wanted to just bring good, positive things into my life. And this was far from that.

He had cancer. Throat cancer – or more specifically, a tumour on the base of his tongue. The prognosis was good. He was going to have radiotherapy and he was going to fight. His wife would have wanted him to fight as much as possible. So that was what he was going to do.

He had the radiotherapy, and he should have been in the clear. But, he wasn’t. He had another tumour. His speech was effected and our phone calls became non existent. It was just too difficult to understand him without the hand signals and facial expressions that went along with it, and so calls ended up being frustrating for both of us.

I relied on his friends to give me updates on how he was and it was the first time I really felt how far away we lived. A two hour drive felt like the opposite end of the earth.

He was given 6 months to live in January 2024. And again, I didn’t find out until three months later. He put off telling me in the hope that he could get stronger and healthier, and have more treatment, prolonging his life. Again, he didn’t want to be a burden.

I was seeing him more regularly, but I would have given anything for those ten minute phone calls again. I really missed the sound of his voice. Him saying ‘Hello Darling’ when he picked up the phone and sounding so cheerful, so happy that I had rung. Other times I’d say ‘Hi Dad, it’s only me’ and he’d say ‘it’s never only you!’ like I was the most important person in the world.

I’d drive to see him every couple of weeks. I’d drive two hours each way to spend two hours with him, the most he could cope with before getting too tired or woozy on painkillers. Towards the end, when he couldn’t talk much at all, we’d just sit and watch TV together. I held his hand and we watched his favourite shows, Bargain Hunt and old black and white western movies.

For the first months of his illness and treatment we’d talk, and I found it easier to understand his broken speech face to face. He told me about his regrets and he apologised for some of the mistakes that he felt he’d made. I told him not to worry, that it was all in the past. It’s how I’d always felt. When we drew the line in the sand nearly twenty years ago I had only ever looked forward. I had only ever wanted a relationship with him and I didn’t want him to spend the last months of his life dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed. Life really is too short, especially at a time like that.

Over the months that followed we spoke a lot about his wife and our conversations brought back how much I had loved her contact, having her in my life and just having someone who cared about me unconditionally. I’ve really lacked that in my life. She’s been gone 13 years and yet it still feels so recent. It still feels so raw.

One day we watched his wedding video together and it was surreal seeing his wife on the screen. I hadn’t ever seen videos of her, and hadn’t physically seen her since a couple of months before she died. It was so lovely to see her face again, hear her laugh and remember her so vividly.

But also, it was lovely to see my dad how I would always remember him. With a bounce in his step, a little bit of a swagger and just a joy for life. Seeing him interact with people, the joy that he brought to them and the joy that they brought to him. He was always such a well liked and loved man.

But, to me, my dad wasn’t a typical dad. I can’t compare him to other dads as he simply wasn’t there. He didn’t teach me to ride a bike. He wasn’t there for my speech therapy or the operation I had on my eye when I was little, he didn’t watch any assemblies at school, wasn’t at sports day and didn’t know what grades I got in my GCSEs. He wasn’t there for such a big chunk of my life.

He didn’t invite me to his wedding and I only found out when watching his wedding DVD with him that he and his wife had actually wanted me there but they felt it would have been too much to think about. I wouldn’t have known anyone, I’d have needed to be transported, have somewhere to stay, been looked after. I was 18 at the time. He thought it would be easier to simply not have me there. So I didn’t find out about the wedding until after it happened – and I spent literally the rest of his life thinking he just hadn’t wanted me there. That I just wasn’t important enough to him.

In hindsight, their wedding was a fork in the road of our relationship. Such a huge thing to have missed, an opportunity to get to know all the people who were important in their lives and a chance to feel important to them too. It set the scene for the rest of our relationship – I was kept separate, not included, not invited. Until Jennie’s funeral, when I sat next to my dad, held his hand and met all the people I’d heard so much about.

When my wedding came along, six years after theirs, he chose not to come as he wouldn’t be the one giving me away. For me, the man who had brought me up and given me such a great childhood, had to give me away. That made sense. But, by that point I also wanted my biological dad and his wife to be a part of my wedding day too. Sadly, it would have been too much for him to cope with and I have always understood and respected that.

There was a time when I didn’t know if I even wanted to know my biological dad. A man who happily stayed out of his only child’s life for their whole childhood. A man who walked away as soon as a replacement dad appeared on the scene.

But, over time I realised that actually, my dad had only ever wanted the best for me. He knew that being in my life after my mum got remarried could be difficult for me. He knew it would be easier for me to just have one dad, a constant in my life – and so he walked away. And I am sure there are times when he regretted that decision. He was also a man who kept a framed photo of me as a toddler on the side in every house he’d ever lived in, and held onto my first pair of shoes. He definitely cared.

I can’t say I agree with his choices but, forty years later, I can understand them. And it’s the way it is, the way it always has been. There’s no changing that.

Our relationship was not a conventional father daughter relationship. But, I can say with complete conviction that he loved me. He loved me, he loved his grandchildren and I loved him too.

Without him I wouldn’t be here. His relationship with my mum was messy and in turn, my relationship with him was non existent for such a long time. But, over the last twenty years or so we had a relationship of sorts. We spent time together when we could and we checked in with each other regularly. We cared about each other and I always knew he was there if I needed him.

When all is said and done, I loved him and I will miss him. I will miss his birthday cards and Christmas card arriving like clockwork on the mat. His handwriting, so familiar and something I won’t ever see again.

I’ll miss him answering the phone, needing to turn the TV down as he always had it far too loud, calling me darling and ending the call with I do love you, like he was always trying to convince me.

I’ll miss the way he walked. The happy swagger he always had. A jolly rhythm to his walk that literally showed how happy he was to be alive.

I’ll miss the way he knew everyone. When we went to his local pub or corner shop and it took us half an hour to walk a two minute walk because so many people stopped to say hello.

I’ll always remember the glasses on a string around his neck. His jeans, jumpers and shirts. Or jeans, a white shirt and blazer if he was dressing up. How he always looked like a smart countryman. How he always made an effort.

I’ll always remember his love of horse racing. His love of auction rooms and some of the weird and wonderful gifts he bought me and the children over the years. He showed his love with I saw this and thought of you moments and I don’t think I really appreciated them until they couldn’t happen any more.

I’ll miss how much he actually cared. In those ten minute phone calls he’d check in about mortgage rates or rising energy costs. He’d make sure our car was ok, that we were doing alright and that there wasn’t anything we needed. I knew that if we ever had financial issues he would help us without a second thought – and it was thanks to him that I had somewhere to live after getting kicked out of home. After seventeen years of not knowing me, he sent me a deposit and first month’s rent without a question.

My dad was 75. And yet, I didn’t even know what year he’d been born until a few months ago. I don’t know what music he liked, what political party he voted for, what his favourite movie was or much about his childhood. There is so much I don’t know and so much that I’ll now never know. Now that my dad and Jennie have both gone, a whole part of my life feels like it has come to a close.

It feels like you should know the people who gave you life. Like you should know about them. Their likes and dislikes. Their medical history. Where they’ve come from and their hopes, dreams and ambitions.

But I didn’t know my dad very well at all, and he didn’t know me that well either. But, I know that he loved me, and he knew that I loved him. And at the end I think that is really all that matters.

Edward John Crocker, ‘Eddie’, 8th August 1949 – 20th April 2025

Thinking of him, back with Jennie now, Jasper the dog running about. Singing whilst doing the washing up together, making cups of too strong tea and sitting in the garden in the evening, enjoying the last of the sun.

See you later dad, send love to Jen for me.