Family Life

Not Coping With Grief and Loss

Written by Gerard on Wednesday 18 November 2009

As the regular readers among you will know, my father died in June from lung cancer. I guess the survivors have dealt with the grief in their own individual ways.

For my own part, I was devastated and temporarily paralysed by the grief I felt afterward. A cornerstone of my life...gone. But strangely enough, real life intruded, and I was forced to snap out of it. The possibility of returning to work, as well as dealing with my father's financial affairs certainly kept me grounded. As well as that, my own family needed me.

Halloween story: Collecting junk for the bonfire

Written by Gerard on Saturday 31 October 2009

It seems the lost art of Halloween bonfire building is actually lost. Aside from officially sanctioned bonfires and fireworks displays, there are very few ad-hoc bonfires being built in neighbourhoods. So today I'm going to play old-timer and recount for you how we built bonfires back in the day.

Parent education classes in London, UK

Written by snowrose on Wednesday 28 October 2009

Parenting Books

When it comes to parenting tips, new parents are always on the receiving end. Everyone in their family and friends are with certain exciting tips for them. Especially the older members of the family always have something or the other to tell the new parent. Sometimes the parents themselves get confused listening to all this and just want a guide to help them be the best of the parents.

Six Rules To Raise Your Children By

Written by Familytastic Staff on Thursday 22 October 2009

What are the core values that we should be raising our children to? Psychologist Kevin Leman, there are six simple rules that should be at the heart of each family.

The rules, which may seem a little harsh on first read, center mostly around respect for the parents as heads of the house, and some basic life lessons. Here are Leman's six rules:

Should children call parents by their first name?

Written by Gerard on Thursday 22 October 2009

Do you call your parents Mum and Dad, or do you use their first name? Or, more importantly, do you allow your children to call you by your first name?

I've been meaning to ask this question on Familytastic for a while now, because our daughter - quite of her own free will - has been calling me "Gerard" and "Dad" intermittently for almost as long as she could talk. And to be honest, a little part of me likes the idea of being on first-name terms with my children.

Is repeating a year good for a child's confidence?

Written by Gerard on Monday 19 October 2009

I was tucking Daniel into the car tonight after football practice when I heard a roar beside me - "BYE BYE DAVID!" It was coming from the other side of the car, where my other son Jake was waving a salute to his friend who was on the other side of the car park

This was unusual, to say the least.

My Inheritance

Written by Gerard on Monday 7 September 2009

Before he died, my father insisted that he wanted me to have two old fog watches that his father had passed to him. My reaction was visibly lukewarm, but I accepted them and promised that I would make sure to pass them down the generations. As long as Lisa doesn’t eBay them first. I’m joking :) See? I used a smiley-face!

But wait, judgemental reader, this wasn’t because I was holding out for a high value item such as a house or a car. No, it was because no physical item would ever replace him.

I wasn’t visiting the hospital so regularly hoping to nudge myself into a more favourable spot in his will. No siree, and I think he knew that Lisa and I are fairly non-materialistic folks. Funnily enough, the one thing I would have loved to receive would have been some kind of letter from beyond the grave. Yes, you can almost taste the diet of Hollywood schmaltz - did Bette Midler get a letter at the end of Beaches?

One last letter...

Written by Gerard on Tuesday 14 July 2009

I don't think I've called you 'father' in years. I adopted the monkier of 'Chib' for you after years of cleaning chimneys together. It got shortened and distorted from 'chimney sweep', didn't it? But it stuck. My nicknames always stick.

The point is, you're gone now, and everything you are or were has been added up: father, friend, protector, provider, verbal sparring partner, simultaneously my biggest supporter and critic, grandfather to my children and so much more. And all that you were is suddenly taken away. For such an unassuming guy, the void you left behind is incredible.

I thought the worst of it was watching you in pain. Suffering, declining. Your legs and arms getting thinner until the skin wrinkled around your joints. Your hacking cough that would overtake speech and leave us unable to talk. And those dreadful, painful sores that covered your tongue because of the oxygen. One of your sisters put it brilliantly in the obituary column: "a short tragic death, suffered with dignity" or words to that effect.

And for a brief while after you died, we were consumed with arrangements: wakes, funerals and paperwork. Still are. I felt strangely disconnected from your body in the coffin. You looked overdressed in that suit. I could see discolouration starting to creep in. I often wonder that people find comfort in visiting graves when the person they loved is decaying beneath their feet. What strange customs we have. All of it reminded me that you were gone.

Lourdes and home again: The death of my father

Written by Gerard on Monday 29 June 2009

My father died at roughly 5:30am on Thursday 25 June 2009. Later that day, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett would follow him, a fact I’m sure he would not care about.

As you know, he died from lung cancer and the weakening side-effects of chemotherapy which left him vulnerable to pneumonia. This is the story of his final journey, the discovery of his cancer and those short, final two months which led to his end.