I wrote this just after my father passed away, Here's to you Big Man.
Farewell My Dear Friend.
A slight exhale followed by nothing. After 71 years my dad didn’t take another breath. He laid in that hospital bed for 10 days waiting for an excuse not to bother anymore.
I decided not to bother anymore when I was 22. I zipped up the board bag, closed my dads shed door and walked away. Girls, beer and cars seemed more important than the sea and my trusty 6’4”. I still called myself a surfer, threw in the occasional brag about exotic locations and monster waves but I was kidding myself more than anyone.
The girls came and went, so did the cars, but the beer, that always stuck around, it didn’t dump me or breakdown either!
Then things started to go not so well for my dad. His wife, my dear old mum had passed away and the family were voicing concerns about how he was coping. So months later like a true lay-about son I thought I better go and see him, see how he was doing. He was OK, dad was always ok, the house was no longer the spotless show home my mum had created and he had a passion for tracksuit pants and slippers, but generally he was just a man getting old and watching the days go by.
It was whilst I was there I spotted the faded pink board bag through the shed window and my surfing days flashed around my minds eye. Eight years had past but I realised I could remember great days, and certain specials waves like it was yesterday. The first head high wave walling up in front of me, the first trip abroad and feeling like I was the great explorer. Memories that gave me a shiver up my spine and had me suddenly hunting out the shed key.
I drove home that evening with the board bag on my flattened front seat and a bin liner in the boot stuffed with a very musty day-glow blue and red wetsuit.
I started watching the weather forecasts every night (this was 1997 so home pc’s were just becoming popular and the internet a foreign language!) and my great comeback being carefully planned.
The thing was, I was crap. Not just bad, but really crap. Just turned 30, not very fit and on a board for a 10 stone person, not a 14 one! But, on that shitty south coast wind slop the spark was re-ignited.
I bought a bigger board, then a longboard, which was a revelation. A new love affair had started, you couldn’t keep me out of the water. I started travelling again. I started to live to surf again. To be honest, I started to feel alive again.
Unlike my Dad, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Slowly the disease ate away at his brain, first his short term memory, peoples names, what day it was, then where he lived or who he was. Finally it all got to much for him and in a lucid moment set off on a walk knowing he would soon forget were he was or how to get back.
The police picked him up in bushes on a roundabout, mistaking him for a drunk. The penny dropped for everyone that day, and a home was found and a new chapter started in his life as it had that day in his shed for me.
Dad got worse over the years, unlike my surfing, which slowly got better. There was still a cheeky grin and the occasional sly comment but his time was coming and I think he was ready.
I was 40 last year, just before Dad passed away, and I really do miss him. I was annoyed with myself for ages for missing out on my prime surfing time, for leaving that board in his shed. But when things happen that make you stop and look around you realise that it’s the here and now that matter and you’ve got to make the most of it.
I surfed the day after my Dad passed away, solid 4 foot swell with strong offshore winds and I surfed like nothing else mattered. With my heart pounding and my balls on the line. I had some of the best waves in a long time, and in between sets I sat there and I smiled and I remembered him. I may have even cried a little but I’m pretty sure that was just salt water in my eyes.
Never regret what you didn’t do, and give everything to the ones you love.
Waves and Happy Days.
