Oh my goodness
I've been trying to wade through this article, about parenting, on the Independent website all afternoon, but kept getting interrupted by children's demands. Finally got to the end of it just now. And the last paragraph reads as follows:
Remember you don't have to be a perfect parent, just a good one
My father died last week, and his funeral is tomorrow. But, maybe strangely, this week hasn't been soaked in tears or steeped in mourning for me: in fact, it's been pretty much business as usual.
It wasn't that I didn't love my father - I loved him very much indeed - and it certainly wasn't that I'm not going to miss him, because I know I'll miss him for the rest of my life. But what I've realised, these last few days, is that he has managed to leave me with the greatest final gift a parent can leave to his or her child: he's left me with no emotional baggage.
It isn't that he and I had a perfect relationship - we didn't. It isn't that he was a perfect father, and it certainly isn't that I was a perfect daughter. (And now I come to think of it, I wouldn't have wanted a perfect father anyway. Like all loveable and interesting people, it was his faults as much as his strengths that made him the person he was.)
What my father absolutely was, and this is what we'll celebrate tomorrow when we raise a glass of champagne to his life after his funeral, was the hardest thing anyone can ever hope to be. He was a good enough parent: good enough for me and good enough for my siblings. And if I have any ambition in my life, it's to follow in his footsteps. What I most hope is that I can be a good enough parent, too.
I could have written all of that about my dad. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but I'm left with absolutely no unfinished business with him, and no emotional baggage from our relationship. And I love him to pieces for that.
Remember you don't have to be a perfect parent, just a good one
My father died last week, and his funeral is tomorrow. But, maybe strangely, this week hasn't been soaked in tears or steeped in mourning for me: in fact, it's been pretty much business as usual.
It wasn't that I didn't love my father - I loved him very much indeed - and it certainly wasn't that I'm not going to miss him, because I know I'll miss him for the rest of my life. But what I've realised, these last few days, is that he has managed to leave me with the greatest final gift a parent can leave to his or her child: he's left me with no emotional baggage.
It isn't that he and I had a perfect relationship - we didn't. It isn't that he was a perfect father, and it certainly isn't that I was a perfect daughter. (And now I come to think of it, I wouldn't have wanted a perfect father anyway. Like all loveable and interesting people, it was his faults as much as his strengths that made him the person he was.)
What my father absolutely was, and this is what we'll celebrate tomorrow when we raise a glass of champagne to his life after his funeral, was the hardest thing anyone can ever hope to be. He was a good enough parent: good enough for me and good enough for my siblings. And if I have any ambition in my life, it's to follow in his footsteps. What I most hope is that I can be a good enough parent, too.
I could have written all of that about my dad. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but I'm left with absolutely no unfinished business with him, and no emotional baggage from our relationship. And I love him to pieces for that.