On Forgiveness

I went to my Dad’s funeral yesterday. A parent’s funeral would be difficult at the best of times, but in my case the relationship with my Dad was anything but normal.

You see, we spent a large portion of our lives without contact. Around 20 years, from the age of eight to my early thirties, we had almost no contact. Birthdays and Christmas’s went, and nothing. He was all but gone from my life. I largely considered I had no Dad over this period. I learned to block it out.

At the first chance I could, I left my home town of Hull and moved abroad to Spain for five years, then Japan, trying to get as far away from it as possible.

But a very odd thing happened in Japan. I decided to get in touch with Dad. I lived in an ancient, rural part of Japan famous for the Samarai. Surrounded by rice paddies, chirping cicadas and karaoke bars, I met some lovely people.

My boss, “Kyokucho” as I’d call him, was a lovely man. The sort of man who can look into your soul without even speaking. He came one day and gave me a piece of decorative wood with the words “South Mountain Happiness” he’d handwritten in Japanese (I still have it hung up in my house now). He was fun, charming, and most importantly, a father figure.

I’ve never really joined the dots, but being so far away and feeling that connection with Kyokucho led me to ringing my Dad.

I looked up his name, rang a couple of wrong numbers. “This is a waste of time, he won’t want to hear from me anyway,” I thought. But I persisted.

Then I struck gold. “Is Bryan there?” I asked. “Sorry he’s out at the moment, who is this?” his late Wife said. “It’s his son, Gerard”, I said. Then she uttered the words that rocked my brain, “this is the phone call he’s been waiting his whole life for! Can you ring back?”

I put the phone down, totally confused. He actually wanted this? I’d spent the last 20 years thinking he didn’t care, and now I’m hearing he actually did.

I rang back a bit later, and he answered. “Hello Gerard…”.

“I’m really glad you’ve called” he said. When I mentioned I was calling from Japan, he paused. He’d also worked in Japan, and loved it too. He apparently had a bottle of Whiskey with his name on it in a Tokyo bar somewhere.

I was due back to the UK for a family wedding in a couple of months, so we agreed to meet up for a meal in Manchester.

“You’ve got real balls doing this” I remember him saying as we glanced across a table at each other on Deansgate. He was delighted to see me and very proud of my family traits, “the Richardson is strong in you.” He kept saying “You look really fit, you look really fit.”

We met up a handful of times over the next few years, once to see England play the All Blacks at Twickenham. I’d be lying if I said it was easy. Those formative years of father-son bonding had been lost, and the conversations often ventured into the past. As Loudon Wainwright III says so beautifully in the song The Days that We Die, “the past keeps getting in the way”.

“You have to purge all this hate” he once said. He was right.

With the help of family, friends, and a touch of therapy, I learned to do that over the years.

I think becoming a Dad and Husband showed me just how hard it can be sometimes. To his credit, despite all my anger, he was always there, he always answered the phone. I learned not to judge.

The last few times I spoke to Dad I always made a point of being nice, to keep it jovial. I’d purged the hate.

His Passing

I always wondered how would I find out about his passing. In his 80s now, it was going to happen sooner or later, I thought. How would I even know? I knew he had two daughters from his second family who I’d never met. I didn’t know if they would tell me, how would they even find me? I didn’t know if he ever mentioned me.

Then I got the call. “Hi Gerard. It’s Alicia, your half sister. I wanted you to know that Dad has passed away.”

I broke down and literally couldn’t speak. “Will call you back,” I said. It had happened, and I’d just spoken to a half sister for the first time.

After composing myself, I rang back. We spoke, and spoke, and spoke. Despite the sadness, we were both buzzing about speaking to a sibling we’d never met and only ever heard about (yes, my Dad had mentioned us quite a bit as it happened). I was put on speaker phone so Davinia, the other half-sister I’d never met, could hear the conversation.

I then rang my brother and sister to tell them the news. I said to my sister Clare “I’m going to send you Alicia’s number”, why don’t you give her a call, not really expecting her to. Amazingly, Clare rang her. “Alicia’s lovely”, she said afterwards.

I knew that going to the funeral would be massively emotional, and part of me just wanted to bury my head in the sand. Until literally a couple of days before, I was still undecided whether I could handle it. Most friends and family I spoke to gently urged me to go, but I still wasn’t sure. “How will everyone react?” “I resemble him physically a lot, this will be too much for everyone and me” I thought.

My sister Clare, the eldest of us three, demonstrated amazing courage. Despite all the reasons not to go, she kept coming back to the same phrase “But it’s the right thing to do.”

So we went.

The Funeral

It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. I stood outside the chapel, not knowing where to put myself. I saw a woman ushering people in, and said “Are you Alicia?”. “No, I wish I was, I’m one of her friends” she laughed. “Who are you?” “I’m her half brother.” “What really?”.

I looked over my shoulder and I could see the funeral cortege approaching. The friend said “come in with me” and in I went, found the first seat I could, and sat down. Up I looked, and there was Dad’s picture.

“Everyone please stand,” I heard, and Louis Armstrong’s We Have All The Time In The World played and in came the coffin right in front of me, followed by his daughters. I immediately saw Alicia for a split second and we both sobbed. It was the first time we’d ever seen each other!

Funerals are never easy, but this service was understandably really tough. I had suggested his final song to the girls, Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic, and when that finally came on it was gorgeous and heartbreaking. I closed my eyes. “I don’t have to fear it.”

As everyone funnelled out, the three of us went up to the coffin and said bye. “Lets go meet our new family,” I said.

We came out the chapel and there the girls where.

We hugged and said hello. It was both surreal and mezmerising. The family bond between us, the Richardson gene, despite us never being in each others lives was so strong. We met their gorgeous kids. “You’re so like Martha my daughter” I said to one of their daughters.

The words “I think we need a drink!” quickly followed, so off we all went to the wake, absolutely buzzing.

The wake was amazing. We got to talk to the girls some more, and meet some more people. Of course, lots of Dad’s old mates and their wives were there too. When they realised it was us, they couldn’t believe it. They were overcome with joy too.

It was bittersweet that Dad wasn’t there to see all five of us together. Everyone kept saying how much he’d have loved to see it.

Here’s a picture of the five of us together for the first time.

Thoughts and Reflections

Quite a thing, isn’t it!

I’m so immensely proud of us all. For us three to have the courage to go, but also for the two half-sisters to welcome us with open arms, was amazing. I said to a couple of people at the wake “we’re righting a wrong,” and it really feels that way.

The five of us had so much catching up to do. The girls didn’t know much of the Richardson family history as my Dad hadn’t spoken much about it. We told them about our French ancestry (we fled France during the French Revolution, apparently), the unclaimed Richardson land (that was lost when the brothers had a fall out, seeing a theme?!). A lots of anecdotes about our Dad that we didn’t know and vice versa.

After the wake, we decided to go to his favourite pub in Beverley (where many of us were born) and had more drinks and talked some more. We all had very similar senses of humour, lots of laughter, it just felt incredible.

Just before we left, the girls gave me his signet ring that I’ve worn ever since. The girls were thrilled that I was going to give it new life. “He’d have loved that” they said.

It was such a special day. Alicia got it right when she said “Out of the darkness, comes light.” It really feels that way. We chose peace over conflict. We stopped the cycle of hurt. We fixed our family fissure in the Universe!

Dad was such a character, that even his death had to be an event. Well he delivered on that, in spades!

In our Dad’s passing we found each other. How sweet is that!

“Good show”, I think he’d say. RIP Dad.

Songs that Helped me Through

A Father and A Son – Loudon Wainwright III

A wonderful song by Loudon Wainwright III about Father and Son relationships. I love the guitar, fiddle and most importantly, the lyrics. It’s joyous, emotional, simply wonderful! “When we were together it was always rough.” “Maybe it’s hate, probably it’s love.”

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The Days That We Die – Loudon Wainwright III

Another by Loudon, I first heard The Days That We Die a few years ago. I loved it then, and it always resonated with me as it discusses fractious family relationships. When I got the news of my Dad’s death, I remembered this song and listened to it a lot. I love the monologue at the start and his mention of a “realignment”. When his son Rufus Wainwright joins him in the song, its just awesome.

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Into the Mystic – Van Morrison

I suggested this song be played as Dad’s final song, and the girls had it added. I’ve no idea if Dad was a Van Morrison fan, but this song, Into the Mystic, is awe-inspiring. In death Dad is going “into the mystic” (the unknown). “Let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic.”

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The Rising Souls – Dangermuffin

I listened to this song a lot the day before the funeral as I headed up north on the train. I’m not sure who the rising souls are, is it Dad, is it us? I love the opener… “I feel a new day, I feel a new day, and it’s one that we have not known”.

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I Shall Be Released – Uplowman Ft. Ben

A month or so after writing this, I went to see my best mate Ben in Spain where I used to live. We recorded a version of Dylan’s I Shall Be Released. You’ll see some AI generated of Dad dancing at Butlins (hint: Uplowman is me :-))