Searching for myself...

(Artwork: Raphael Perez)

As my blogroll suggests there are quite a few blogs I follow regularly. I'm impressed how so many bare their souls with beautifully written posts revealing their inner most thoughts and emotions. Breenlantern is one such blogger who writes vividly. Another fascinating blogger with quite a different style is Kezza. These are just two examples.

The more I read these blogs the more I wonder about my own emotion and passion. A cursory examination of my blog will confirm that I reveal far less of myself than do these passionate men. And it has always been that way.

Before my mother developed Alzheimer's Disease she often commented that I may have inherited her looks but that I am my father's son in character. Sometimes the comment was spoken in jest but as often she was admonishing me for an action or behaviour of which she did not approve.

My father belonged to that stoic generation of men who were quiet and did not show emotion. There was no such thing as a metrosexual in their day. It was very difficult to know what he was thinking deep down. I saw him cry just the once and that was the night when the Police brought me home to my parents after entrapping me at a toilet and, I suppose, the realisation of my sexuality hit him. He never cried again in my presence nor did he mention that night.

I didn't really doubt that he continued to love me, although he didn't state it but I was never certain what it was he was thinking.

In 1974 I was posted to London to work there for two years. Although I had travelled overseas twice previously on holidays, this was to be the first time I had lived away from my parents. They saw me off at the Airport. Within a week of my arrival in London I received a letter from my father. It was the only letter he sent me in my life (other than the briefest notations at the bottom of letters my mother sent). It was a beautiful letter. I had no idea that my father harboured such passion and love for me.

But that was it. He never really opened up to me again except for something he said to me less than a week before his death. He was in hospital and I was helping him from his bed to a chair by the window and he whispered to me "You really do love me". It was said as a statement of surprise. He was dead before the week was over.

And so here I am, my father's son - pragmatic as ever - keeping most of my thoughts to myself. This particular post notwithstanding.