Stories That Were Never Asked

My dad’s eighty‑sixth heavenly birthday was last Wednesday. I didn’t mark it. I didn’t post on Facebook, visit the crematorium, post here, or even tell the kids. The words never came. I spent the day and the days after remembering him quietly instead.

Dad died in 2022, ten years after we lost Mum. Time is strange. It doesn’t feel like four years have passed, despite so much happening. We got married. I began the ordination process. My health changed. Losing Mum still feels close, but looking at James shows how long it’s been. He was fifteen months old when she died. He is fifteen years old now. Life just moves on.

I thought I would forget them or that my memories would blur. That never happened. I just wish I had more time, built more memories, and learnt more about them.

Back in February, James and I went to Canterbury for his ASD assessment. He had been struggling for months and wanted one‑on‑one time. I was happy to give it. I went to university in Canterbury. It was full of fun. Studying, nights out, pubs, girls, adventures, trouble, and the places his mum and I spent time together when we started dating halfway through my first year, even though we met in Sixth‑form. I showed him everything and the stories flowed. At one point he said, “You have such good dad lore.” It made my day.

We also talked about Mum and Dad. He said they had good lore as well. I didn’t show it, but it hurt. There is so much about them that I will never know. Some things came out after they died, but most of their lives remain a mystery.

I just didn’t care enough to ask when they were alive.

I remember being in my mid‑twenties, sitting in their garden with Dad and my uncle. A plane flew overhead and Dad said, “That’s going to Amsterdam.” I challenged him, convinced he was talking nonsense. I mean, how could anyone know where a plane was travelling to unless you were on it? Mum also had a fear of flying and of being on boats and ferries. There was no way she would have done this.

So, I asked Mum. I stormed inside, repeated the conversation, and Mum confirmed it. She had been on a national ten‑pin bowling team and travelled to compete. I knew Mum bowled when she was younger, but I never knew this. Dad went to the loft and brought down her uniform, trophies, badges, and a box of photos. I was stunned. I was in my twenties and only just learning this. What else didn’t I know? They adopted my brother when Mum was thirty‑eight and Dad was forty‑one, and then me three years later. I knew they had a life before parenthood, like we all have, but I’d never heard about this. There were decades of their life before we arrived that I knew nothing about. 

Years later, after Mum died but before Dad’s Alzheimer’s and dementia fully took hold, I asked why Mum stopped flying. He told me the return flight from Amsterdam was on an old, unstable plane. They were seated apart. Mum gripped her seat the whole way, terrified she would die without Dad beside her. It was a horrible thought, but it comforts me that she eventually died with him by her side.

I now know fragments of her bowling years, but so much is missing. I don’t know when she started, how long she played, who she played with, or why she stopped. It didn’t matter then. I thought I had time. After Mum died, I still didn’t ask enough. I was recovering from a breakdown, climbing a mental health mountain, adjusting to a personality disorder, potentially ASD, misdiagnoses, divorce, learning to parent alone, learning to co‑parent, building a home school style and environment, and staying afloat. By the time I cared, Dad’s memory had gone. Forty years of their life disappeared with it.

All the questions I wish I had asked is what consumes me on anniversaries or birthdays each year. I shouldn’t be surprised. I have had half of my life erased by my parents. That doesn’t make it any easier though. 

It has made me think about my own life and the stories I leave behind. I don't want my children to be in this position with me. 

This blog has always had three purposes.  

1. To document my life as a parent, capturing everyday moments, challenges, and joys with the boys.  

2. To share my thoughts and work through whatever life throws at me, whether that’s home schooling, parenting, disability, health, general topics, or Christian and church posts.

3. To record who I am so the boys, and now Midge and Arty too, have somewhere to come when I’m gone and they want to hear my voice again.

A time capsule of my life.

So I’m starting a new weekly series, "The Stories I Leave Behind." A space to share my life. Everything I can remember or know. Almost a thousand posts exist already on this blog, but there’s still so much I’ve never written. It’s time to fill in the gaps.