The Eulogy

As I sat in my armchair beside the fire, a good book in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, I rested my head on my shoulder and basked in the silence. I was content. It was the first opportunity I had gotten to do this in what seemed like a stupid amount of time.

My chair was positioned at such an angle that I couldn’t see any of the copious amount of boxes my brother had brought with him when he and his partner split six months before. I was glad I was able to give him a place to go, and bit my tongue every time I got an overwhelming urge to ask him when he was going to find somewhere more permanent…he was my brother after all.

I sighed, irritated as my phone began to chirp, it was my father. I rolled my eyes and ignored the call bringing my attention back to my book. I was at a pivotal point in the story where I was about to find out that the serial killer was actually the detectives husband. My phone chirped again, and again it was my father. I wouldn’t have minded as much, had I been speaking to the man at the time. He was the kind of man who was very distant and cold, someone I had no room for in my life anymore. I was sick of ringing him only to get his voicemail and leaving messages to no reply.

The third time my phone chirped I sighed and placed my glass of sauvignon Blanc onto the side table a little rougher than I had meant. I looked at the phone and this time it was my uncle, a man who I hadn’t seen, or heard from, in years. I was his only niece and I wasn’t even invited to his wedding. Well technically I was but I never received the invite, it was more of a by the way from my father a week before the blessed event.

‘Something must be wrong!’ I said to myself and closed the open book with a clap.

‘Hello,’ I answered out of curiosity more than anything.

‘Sophie?’

‘Hi Michael,’ I rolled my eyes and shook my head subconsciously.

‘Sophie, I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ he said soberly into the phone.

I sat up in the chair and listened to silence, ‘yea…’ I said trying to get him to spit out whatever he needed to say.

‘I’m afraid your father died!’ he said bluntly.

My heart sank, I felt like a ton weight had been dropped into my stomach and the blood drain from my face. I shook my head in disbelief. The man has been saying he was dying every time I had seen him for the past twenty years, but I never thought he would actually do it.

‘What?’ I asked my uncle to confirm what he had just said.

‘James died a few hours ago,’ my uncle repeated.

Tears began to form in my eyes. Yes, I found him cold and distant since he left the family home, but I wasn’t a monster.

‘Ok,’ I replied starting to choke up.

‘He had a heart attack and died bringing my mother to the shop this morning,’ Michael informed me.

‘Ok,’ I repeated. It was all I could manage to say.

‘Will you tell your mother?’ he asked.

‘Ok,’ I reached for a tissue, but couldn’t find one, so I took off my glasses and wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my cardigan.

‘Are you alright?’ Michael asked, showing slight concern in his voice.

‘Yea,’ I lied. I cleared my throat and thanked him. He said he would give me the details of the arrangements the next day.

I looked at the silent phone with disdain. How dare he, how dare he go and die with me resenting him. I looked at the half full glass of wine beside me, and downed it as if it was water. As I got up from my chair in search of more, my leg brushing off a box of my only brothers things. He was even more estranged from our father than I was. I wasn’t sure how he was going to take the news.

As I opened the fridge to get the ¾ full bottle of sauvignon Blanc, I simultaneously called my mother.

‘Hiya lovey,’ she answered. I was half expecting her to say good riddance to the news but instead she asked if I had told my brother, Kevin, yet.

‘No, he’s out!’ I answered.

‘I’m coming over!’ she informed me and hung up the phone. Disregarding the glass, I drank the rest of the bottle in the ten minutes it took her to arrive on my doorstep and let herself in.

My parents had been separated for twenty years, my mother only recently found it in her heart to move on. Before she met her ‘boyfriend’ of six months, Robert, she had been on her own since my father. He, on the other hand, had had a rake of women over the past twenty years. I knew he was seeing his current, well, I don’t know what to call her now that he’s dead, but I knew about Marian. They had been together for ten years, yet I hadn’t ever met her.

When my father informed my mother that he was divorcing her two years ago, we had a sneaky feeling it was because he wanted to get remarried…...yet it was him who was prolonging the divorce by not telling anyone where he lived. It was a fact that was baffling…...I didn’t even know where my own father lived!

When my mother crossed the threshold, the wine was starting to kick in. The bottle of sauvignon Blanc, like my father, was dead, leaving me in search of my brothers vodka. I needed alcohol to numb the overwhelming sadness of the situation.

An hour later, the bottle of vodka was also dead, and I ended up hugging the toilet for the night, not used to drinking alcohol. My mother stayed to tell my brother when he came home from his first night out in a long time.

 

The next day arrived, and brought with it a hangover. I swore I would never drink alcohol again, but knew that that was a bit unrealistic. In my thirty-seven years on this earth, I had never drunk as much as I had done the previous night.

As I nursed my aching head, the phone chirped…it was Michael. The funeral was set for two days’ time. I hadn’t realised that funerals were so quick nowadays and was shocked when Michael asked me to get up and speak at the service. Reluctantly, I agreed.

 

On Saturday, the day of the funeral, my mother refused to attend. ‘He didn’t want me in life, so why would he want me in death!’ she simply said. It was completely understandable. Had I been in her shoes, I wouldn’t have gone either. Kevin, on the other hand, I was surprised to hear wasn’t going. I knew they had no contact whatsoever, but was flabbergasted when I realised that I was going alone.

When I arrived at the church, my speech typed out and laminated so my tears wouldn’t smudge the ink, I looked around for a friendly face but was in a sea of strangers. Michael only saluted me because I was sitting beside him and my grandmother on the first pew. I felt so out of place. Without my father as a buffer, my grandmother laid into me about my weight and made snide remarks and comments regarding the fact that I hadn’t seen her in six years. In my defence, my weight was my own business, and I hadn’t wanted to see her because she was the most negative people I had ever met.

I became oblivious to my surroundings, focusing my attention on my father in that coffin. He looked so peaceful, not at all like the man he was in life. Michael nudged me in the ribs when the priest asked me to go up and deliver my eulogy. I tentatively made my way up to the alter, passing my father as I went, and took my place at the pulpit.

When I looked up, I decided to abandon the speech I had prepared. Instead I laid it out like it was:

To everybody in this church who doesn’t know me, I’m Sophie, James’ daughter. Well I guess that is news to all of you except for my uncle and grandmother, who I haven’t seen in years.

My father was a womaniser, he was the type who cheated his way through life. He cheated on my mother with an air hostess, and cheated on her with Marian. I don’t even know which one of you is Marian, or even if she’s here at all. I don’t know this because my father chose to have it that way.

He fathered, not only me, but my brother as well. It’s a real testament to him that his own son felt so rejected that he wouldn’t come to his fathers funeral.

This man in the coffin is not my father, not the father I remember. He isn’t frowning at my appearance or criticising me about my clothes or lifestyle. He could never wrap his head around the fact that he had two gay children, he never accepted us for who we were. He always wanted my brother, Kevin, to get a more conventional job. He refused to see him be a dancer and be very successful in his field.

The last time I met my father, he shouted at me for the duration, yet gave me a hug as we parted ways…I guess this is me reciprocating as I know I’m making you all feel uncomfortable, just the way he made me feel.

I had prepared a speech but because I am his only daughter, at his only funeral, in a sea of strangers, I decided to give him an honest eulogy, not something false or fake like his life with me was. Thank you.

 

I wiped my eyes with a tissue my mother had given me and walked over to the coffin. I placed my hand on his forehead and whispered, ‘I love you dad!’ before turning and walking out of the rumbling church….my one and only tie to that family, severed.

 

 

 

picture from pixabay