I wish there was a way I could let him know.
It’s funny, isn’t it? How we go through things, and we just sort of… accept them. No matter how bad it might get. We just sort of… shrug. And we wave it off. We wait expectantly for the next good bit, or the next bad bit… or just the next bit in general. It doesn’t matter where you are, there’s always something that comes next. You could be in hell, right here, still living, and still there’s a little bit of hope. Just the same, you could be in heaven, and still, there’s a little bit of fear. You know, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You’re much too young to understand. But it’s true. The thing about Gil and I, we were alright. We were good for one another. We ‘worked.’ And, it never mattered how bad things got, there was always a next bit.
He really was a good man. You know, I don’t think a lot of people understood that. I did - of course, I did. That may have been one of the few things I was actually good at, when I come to think about it. The truth is, I am not very good at most things. I don’t have any real ‘talent.’ But I was very good at seeing the light when it mattered. I could see the man that Gil was. I knew it from the start. And if I was good at only one thing, I am happy to have been good at that. What we shared, with the time that we had… it was beautiful. It was beautiful and I am, strangely, left with no kind of ‘achievement’ - but I am left with no regret. He was beautiful, my dear. Your father, he was beautiful.
I remember the sounds that came through our window late at night. Loud, drunken laughter, and the roar of car engines that had somewhere better to be. Quite inconsequential things - the kind of things that anyone hears, anywhere in the world. But we would hear these sounds and laugh to ourselves. I don’t know why. He used to put his bony arm around my shoulders. Nothing too dramatic, just enough to feel his warmth, to know that he was there, to feel this subtle moment our lives had led us to. As I say, we used to laugh. He… he really was a good man.
But for so long, I think, he had been lonely. I don’t know for certain, because he never really told me. I don’t think he ever felt the need to. But I used to come home from work late at night and find him at his desk, smoking one of those cigarettes he did a terrible job of hiding, just staring at a spot on the wall. He was never unhappy doing this; he would leap up and smile the moment he saw me (every time). But there was something in his stillness - something in his shoulders - that told me, for most of his life, this man had been very truly and painfully alone. It was something, over all that time, I never really saw fade.
But why am I telling you this? You really are too young, my dear. I suppose I’m overwhelmed. I suppose I don’t know all these people. I suppose I doubt their sincerity. Of course, I knew the funeral would be big, but… I don’t know, seeing all of these faces here, faces I never saw next to his… it concerns me. I suppose I needed someone to talk to, young lady, before moving on to the next bit. I suppose I’m touched by the amount of people who loved him, who appreciated him, who are feeling something at his loss. In a strange way, I feel a little hurt. I can see him still at his desk, in that corner, in a small cloud of smoke… and then I look at all of these people, all of them with tears in their eyes. All for Gil…
I don’t know, Sonya, I don’t know.
I just wish there was a way I could let him know.
read the original story:
Writer and poet Benjamin Zephaniah dies aged 65
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
“Nothing is as it seems. Seeing is not believing. Sometimes... you have to feel, touch, experience... and use your intelligence.”
— Benjamin Zephaniah
Not a fan but love his writing and strange that Shane of the Pogues died last week and his funeral was today---aged 65?