Martin Bridgeman

Like a good number of fathers of my acquaintance I forgot all about Father’s Day this year until our son and daughter mentioned it on the past few days and sent messages. If all goes well we’ll meet up, socially distantly and mark the day. This year has made us take stock, figure out the important stuff, try to figure out what day it is…I know what’s always been important and hope I continue to do so but perhaps it’s not a bad idea to take stock on a day like today. 

I know that I’m very lucky. Some fathers have gone way before their time, never met, have left, have lost, some have dreamed and tried and not been able to be fathers, so many stories that will make today a loss rather than a celebration for some. 

Was it all a misty eyed, wonderful, picture perfect fatherhood for me? No, of course not. Mine was, I imagine, like most fathers’ experiences, a mixture: mostly good, some occasionally bad, but shot through with the tight, steely bond I can’t ever imagine changing. The unspoken worries, the anxieties as we navigated these new relationships, the challenges, the talking, the occasional row but that bond still, holding it all together, the fall back from what is ultimately a temporary difficulty. Even at the worst of times, I still remember the wonder of the new relationship as a small person held my finger, entered my life and dug deep in to my soul. I hope I won’t ever forget. It’s the proudest achievement of my life and I hope to hang around a bit more to keep making the effort if that’s okay.

It’s a measure of the strange times that we won’t be able to hug and I will miss that today for sure. I am lucky that we’ll meet up. Many have had denied them for a long time now and many still feel this 2020 form of anxiety about human contact. On a day like today that constrained closeness reminds me of the first hugs I gave our children, the little special shared moments that spread their memories along the way. In each case I remember the breathtaking beauty of them, the connection, the teary, passing moments that will never leave me. I wouldn’t swap being a father for anything.

I remember a conversation recently and a comment that we, as fathers, generally don’t have the same support networks that many women have as mothers. That’s not a complaint, I actually I think it’s more an indictment of how many of us work through this fathering thing. We should speak out more with each other but we don’t for a variety of reasons and I’m hopeful that this is changing. Certainly, from my observation anyway, the numbers of younger men pushing buggies around, being around, teaching, inspiring is making me more hopeful. We have to keep getting better, or at the very least trying to be. Maybe this lockdown and its various experiences have given us pause for reflection and that can only be a good thing. Bigger picture, the truly important stuff.

I remember my adoptive father’s hugs today, his singing voice, the smells of hair oils and after shave, his laugh, his love. The man, Mick, who raised me, was a gentleman. He also had a love of the absurd, the Goons being his favourite comedians. I still remember his Da Jokes, some of which I still tell and yes, I relish the groans. Who knows what the teenage years would have brought for us but I like to think I’ve held on to most of his decency close to me in my way in the world and I hope I’ve passed it on.

My birth father memories are a series of photos: smiling, a glint in the eye, of devilment, remote but with a very real familiarity. Now, with my hair in a form of wild disarray and long forgotten curls returned, I really see me in him and vice versa like never before. Hair has been the linking factor with my son and his grandfather too, all in the curls again. I  can see it now, something that was absent for a long time. It was a similar experience with my birth mother too, this time with my daughter, but it was again her hair, their crowning elegance, replicated across a generation. 

I also hear the echoes of my adoptive mother’s wise words, when she made me promise her I’d seek out my truth, that we all need to know where we came from. Whatever I thought, now that I was a father I owed it to my children to understand that most basic of connection and likeness. I know there are moments where I see real likenesses and then others see where I can’t. All that said, the past year of reflection and recognition and building and storing of familiarities has been redemptive if that’s not over stating things. 

It’s always the same for an adopted person. As I say and will continue to say: it’s complicated. Our children have never met my birth parents and were too young to have many memories of my adoptive mother but, again, I hope I’ve kept her memory alive. There’s that loyalty to people not connected by blood but the deep bond or nurture and yet, that unresolved sense of connection to people I have never met. 

My birth father memories is also one of stories, an oral history jigsaw of reminiscences. He’s a brief moment on a recording, a snatch of conversation and a tune. I remember that breathless momenta few years ago, seeing his picture in full colour, then last year, hearing his voice, his accent, his harmonica playing. I see his face every day in pictures that my new family gave me, another part of the jigsaw and a reminder of what could have been. I’d love to have met and know him but that was the way it panned out but it still makes me wonder about what could have been. I hope to meet some of his friends in time but, not for another while yet. I hope I do, to add more pieces to the jigsaw.

For today, I’ll remember both fathers, see their imprint across the years in shared genetics and shared wisdoms. Then I’ll sit with our two children, give thanks for my lot and cherish the moment. We might even remember to take a picture…

Happy fathers day…

PS. This year, for the first time in decades, no willy was drawn on my card. Frankly, I’m disappointed.