Meet my dad.

A blogger I follow, Miss Zoot, recently posted an entry which was basically an open letter to her dad, who died several years ago. I have been feeling a little under the weather recently, and it's Father's Day in Spain today, and I have noticed that I have been missing my dad more than usual; and so I thought I would write to tell you about my dad.

*****

One of my earliest memories of my dad is of him trying to teach my sister and I to say the word for 'dog' in Spanish. We must still have been living in Paris, and based on my recollection of what the kitchen looked like, it must have been in the first year we lived there. I must have been two? That doesn't sound right. Perhaps it was the first year we were in Spain, which would have made my sister and I eight and six years old respectively, which seems more likely. Neither my sister nor I could roll our 'r's, so when we tried to say "perro", what actually happened was this:
Sister: "Pe-lo!"
Me: "Pe-jo!"
Sister: "Pe-ro!"
Me: "Pehhhh-o!"
Cue ecstatic small-child-giggles of hilarity, when, already in our in nighties, we should have been headed to bed.

And so my dad tried to teach us some Spanish before we moved to Barcelona - or in the first few years we were there. And when I started learning it at school, whilst my sister still spoke French with him, I switched to Spanish; and it felt like our little secret. I knew, of course, that both my sister and mum could perfectly understand what we were saying, but I still thought of it as "our little thing."

But then there are so many more things that make him him, that made my relationship with my dad be one that I miss enormously. Like how he always called me "pretty face". How he encouraged me to be part of the Castellers de San Andreu De La Barca even though it was crazy and at strange hours and he was afraid of heights. How he taught me some DIY - how he left me instructions on how to affix a cork board to the wall in my room, and how I did it, following those instructions, after he'd died. How we'd build IKEA furniture together while drinking cups of tea and listening to the Boss. How he'd help me with my maths homework. How he let me sit on his lap at the dinner table until I was surely too old for that, because I needed a cuddle. How he'd let me try any wine he was drinking - until I realised, around about my 12th birthday, that I wasn't sure I liked wine, and so stopped. How he let me make Tiramisú by myself when I was about eight years old, and I burned his stove-top coffee maker by omitting to place any water in it, and couldn't stop laughing about it. How he told me to "trust [my] voice" that he "[liked my voice]". How when I told my mum and him that "I... I think I don't like boys," he laughed, said he was proud of me for telling them, and offered me a glass of wine. I was thirteen. (Spain, eh!)

I miss sitting in the car driving back from town, listening to Melissa Etheridge or the Dire Straits, and signing - both of us signing delightfully out of tune. I miss being able to go to dad and say "I don't understand my homework!" I miss being able to dial his office number, and with pride in my voice, be able to ask to speak to "Dr E, please" - though I know the phone number by heart, still. I miss being able to talk to him, to ask him for advice, to tell him "I feel rubbish" or "I am happy."


I miss having this man around.


Come July, I'll have spent a third of my life without him. That is all of my adult life. He died before I finished school, before I moved across the world, before I got into university, before my first serious relationship, before my first paid job, before I graduated from my degree, from my MA, before I learned to drive. Before I moved to a city where I knew no one, before I got my own apartment. There's so much I'd have wanted to tell him.

I just -
I just miss my dad.

If yours is still around, please call him? Just say hi. Ask him for his thoughts on something. Tell him you love him. One more time.