My conversations with my father are very strange....
...I guess they always have been. When I was little he always saw me as a clone of my mother (apart from Car Conversations and Poetry - apparently that was me imprinting off him somehow maybe) but both ideas are foolish, really.
Of course when I was little I picked up traits from both my parents - as all sprogs do, but I think my father was so tangled up in the fact that I *looked* like my mother, it took him a long time to realise I had a logical brain just as pokey as his, even if it did take occasional strange detours.
I think I remember the first time he recognised it: we were walking some random country road, and somehow the conversation had got to funerals - I think he'd attended a non-family one in the near past.
I think I was 13 at the time (maybe 12, maybe 14, let's take the average) and I suddenly said, "But you're not crying for the one who died - whichever way, they're not bothered. You're crying for you and because they're not in your life any more." To be fair I might not have been that concise, but I wasn't that far off either.
My father gave me a very long and appraising look and then half smiled. "That's very much it," he affirmed, the wise philosopher awaiting his student's babble.
It was just a look in truth, but I think that day I did not disappoint him: "Because if there's a heaven they're gonna be happier than we are, if there's a hell they're not gonna care through their pain... if there's just biology they'll be worm food, stuck in their box, and they won't know any different, and if there's some sort of reincarnation thing they'll just be laughing at how we see the universe." (Again, I wasn't that concise, but I do recall those were all the very important points I wanted to make, so I would have burbled until I felt I'd expressed myself.
The look my father gave me was brief but worth a thousand pounds.
I know I'm not always anywhere as brilliant as my father might wish me to be... but I know that just upon occasion I rock his socks off - which is totally good enough for me =P
Heeeheeee - love my father very much even though he's a bloody baggage and where on earth does he think I got it from?! =)
Of course when I was little I picked up traits from both my parents - as all sprogs do, but I think my father was so tangled up in the fact that I *looked* like my mother, it took him a long time to realise I had a logical brain just as pokey as his, even if it did take occasional strange detours.
I think I remember the first time he recognised it: we were walking some random country road, and somehow the conversation had got to funerals - I think he'd attended a non-family one in the near past.
I think I was 13 at the time (maybe 12, maybe 14, let's take the average) and I suddenly said, "But you're not crying for the one who died - whichever way, they're not bothered. You're crying for you and because they're not in your life any more." To be fair I might not have been that concise, but I wasn't that far off either.
My father gave me a very long and appraising look and then half smiled. "That's very much it," he affirmed, the wise philosopher awaiting his student's babble.
It was just a look in truth, but I think that day I did not disappoint him: "Because if there's a heaven they're gonna be happier than we are, if there's a hell they're not gonna care through their pain... if there's just biology they'll be worm food, stuck in their box, and they won't know any different, and if there's some sort of reincarnation thing they'll just be laughing at how we see the universe." (Again, I wasn't that concise, but I do recall those were all the very important points I wanted to make, so I would have burbled until I felt I'd expressed myself.
The look my father gave me was brief but worth a thousand pounds.
I know I'm not always anywhere as brilliant as my father might wish me to be... but I know that just upon occasion I rock his socks off - which is totally good enough for me =P
Heeeheeee - love my father very much even though he's a bloody baggage and where on earth does he think I got it from?! =)