About eighteen years ago, one of my old schoolfriends found himself in the unfortunate position of having to vacate the family home when his father died. In order to help him and his sister have less to carry with them when they moved, I accepted his offer to see if there was anything I might want to buy from their excess of unwanted baggage. I gave him £100 for a few relatively worthless odds'n'ends' (books, ornaments, etc.) so that he didn't think he was the recipient of charity, and hoped it would be of use in some small way.
Amongst the items I purchased from him was the above book. I bought it for my father who was in hospital at the time, so that he could read it when he got out. He never did. He died not long after without ever seeing it (unless he glimpsed it on a brief visit home) and it's languished in a cupboard since the day it came into my possession. Having fought abroad during the Second World War these type of stories were right up his street, but I've never been interested in military matters.
However, whenever I lay eyes on the book, it brings with it a sense of 'unfinished business' - as if it's waiting to fulfill the purpose for which it was bought, but has been denied ever since. As I said, the subject isn't really my 'cup of tea', but, more and more, I'm left with the sense that maybe I should read it on my father's behalf - and thus end its years of neglect and abandonment. I know it sounds daft, but the feeling is beginning to haunt me.
Unfinished business, eh? One day soon perhaps.
A similar situation happened to me when I lost my Dad. He.used to love westerns and I would feed his passion by buying him dvds. There was a fathers'day just before he died and I sent him a Jonah Hex dvd, together with a note, saying I didn't know what the film was like, but that I used to like the comics.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately he never did get to watch it.
Needless to say, that's a film I shall be watching when it comes on the telly.
That's a shame, JP. Did you ever think of getting the DVD back, if possible? Then you could've watched the very one your dad would've watched if he'd lived. Continuity and all that.
ReplyDeleteI was offered all kinds, but I would only be sad at seeing them. I have all I need of both my parents inside my head. Plus I have put much down on paper and given it to my younger brother.
DeleteI see. Whatever works best for you is the right approach, I'd say. If I ever read that book, I haven't yet decided what I'd do with it afterwards. I'll see when (or if) the time comes.
DeleteKid, I feel you are taking filial duty to extremes if you intend to read a book that doesn't interest you on your father's behalf. My father loved reading about old time sailing ships, Nelson etc and he'd read all the novels featuring Horatio Hornblower but I don't feel any desire to do the same. Talking of the war - my father was incredibly lucky because the war ended just 2 months before his 18th birthday when he would have been called up - he was still called up but at least the war had ended. He always said that without the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the war would have dragged on for at least another year, maybe two.
ReplyDeleteI'd be taking it too far if I intended to read every book I thought my father would've liked to have read had he lived, but we're talking one book here. It was bought to be read and it hasn't been, so I feel it's an unfinished action that needs to be completed.
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