Scraps of paper

Scraps of Paper - Eric Bogle
These days my life seems somehow like a tired old cliché
A bad movie scene that just goes on and on
With dialogue like " It's so sad how fast time slips away"
Or "You never really miss them until they're gone"
Funny how those old clichés come true
I never thought I'd miss him, but I do

My father died in summer, and all he left behind
Were little scraps of paper, little scraps of rhyme
I read them and felt something inside me break
And angrily cried out "Too late, too late!"
Surely there must be something better?
Surely there must be something better?

He and I were always strangers, searching for someone
I was looking for a hero, and he a friend
So while I searched for my father, he was looking for his son
So strangers we remained until the end
But the man who wrote his heart into those rhymes
I know he could have been a good friend of mine

So I sit here where he lived and died as the ghosts around me weave
And evening shadows lengthen on the wall
And in this dark and empty room it's so easy to believe
That he never lived at all
But the little scraps of paper in my hand
Proved he lived to me - the father and the man

© Eric Bogle

Been playing that song a few times tonight and apart from it being a very poignant and very beautiful song it also easy for me to relate to - and its time to write in the autobiography about how my own dad died.

We didn't have a father/son relationship, my brother had a father/son relationship with him but at the time that I should have been having one I was always working away, from the age of 18 I only ever came home at weekends and then after a few years not at all - when I did eventually come back to live in Leeds at the age of 28 it was as his business partner not his son.

And thats how it worked for us, we worked together all day long with no favours given and none expected, we were critical of each other in turn and we often had opposing views on how the business should be run, sometimes those differences would never be resolved.

I had a rule though, still do, when the office door closes and I come home then my home life starts, I never bring work home and hate to talk about work when I'm at home, hate people ringing me about work at home won't even speak to Suzanne about work at home - and she is now a partner in the business too.

My dad didn't work like that though, after he'd given up golf he didn't realy have any other interest apart from the business that he had created, even when he'd retired and I was buying the busines from him in monthly installments he still came down to the office and found work to do - and all this time he would come around to our house at nights and he'd ask me business related questions, never father/son stuff, always business - I hated it, but never told him so.

So that was our relationship for 15 years, when his car pulled up outside our house on an evening or weekend my heart would sink and I'd pretend to be busy doing something else. Then he died at christmas 1998 and I came to realise that it was probably my fault that we never had the mythical father/son relationship, if I'd told him about the rule at home then I'm sure he'd have found plenty of other stuff to talk about, plenty of other reasons to come around to our house, not least his two grand-daughters who he gave money to without question, and those two little sods never failed to ask him.

He and I were always strangers, searching for someone
I was looking for a hero, and he a friend
So while I searched for my father, he was looking for his son
So strangers we remained until the end

Very close to home those words...
And now we are nearly ready to sell his business
But more about that later.