Dad

“Did I cry for you that day? The day you left me half an orphan?

I’m sorry but I rejoiced, I smiled, not a single tear did I shed then nor since.

Before me was the dessicated husk of my hero, a man I loved but never showed.

Hollowed burned out eye sockets that gazed with sadness out of a face eroded by such pain.

A spirit, a true Welshman, entombed in a body crippled by illness long before it was ready for the grave.

I would hold your hand and kiss you, and tell you it was time to get some sleep,

Praying to all Gods, both young and old, that this sleep would offer dreams, a break from the nightmare that had become your waking hours.

Those prayers were answered for when your eyes opened, for a split second, you were still there,

Before the reality hit you and the light was extinguished once again.

So did I cry? Of course my father and I think inside you knew.

The moments I was away from you I cried, like a newborn child, for that is what I had become.

I would tell you I was going to football to watch our Bluebirds play, that I was going to buy you some new bedding or that I had an errand to run.

I would find a quiet place, away from all, and I would sob uncontrollably.

One day I cried for twenty cigarettes straight.

I didn’t cry for me but for you.

You were too proud to shed a tear and I am my fathers son, so I did it for the both of us.

It was the very least I could do.

The glance we shared when you saw your grandchildren leave the room we both knew it was the last time you would set eyes on them.

I wanted to scream such was my pain.

But I didn’t. I just hugged you tight, kissed your brow and held you until you slept.

I. No, we. We needed my strength that I had gained from you.

You saw in me not a son, but a man, and I saw in you more man than I could ever aspire to be.

So when they finally rang me and I broke the news to your newly widowed childhood bride she looked at me and said ‘It’s ok to cry my son’,

I looked deep into her eyes and told her from the depths of my soul, ‘Mam, believe me when I tell you that for many weeks, I’ve cried but in honour of my father, from this day forth I am only filled with pride’.”