The story of a fictitious Lancaster family

1: Michael Watson Looks Back

Michael Watson was aged 50 in 1983. Margaret Thatcher formed her second government that year. Michael’s father died. It was not a good year!
The night that Gordon lay dying in the West Norwich hospital, Michael stayed by his side. It was cancer, after two strokes. A man of physical and mental strength had been struck down suddenly. He was unconscious, unshaven, undone.
It was a very hot night of midsummer. An ineffective electric-fan hummed away in the ward, which was silent, apart from the occasional cough from a nearby bed. Michael sat in his shirt sleeves because of the humidity, staring at his father’s deadly pale face.
The bedclothes were drawn back from his father's hot, sweating body. He lay outstretched, inert, on his back. His night-shirt was up round his waist. His usually flat stomach was horribly swollen. Always a man proud of his appearance, there he was unashamed, not knowing, his flaccid penis docile, lying across his abdomen. For the last two weeks he'd even forgotten how to piss out of it. Once the cause of so much domestic misery, it was, like its owner, now completely clapped out.
It seemed incredible that, aged 79, the old boy had been walking his dog four miles a day only a month before the first stroke had felled him. He had been digging and tending his large garden, painting his house, finding any excuse he could to do additional tasks for Michael and his family.
Just like it had always been -- putting Michael first!
Michael held his father's hand during the hours of darkness, through the dawn and into daylight. Still the old man slumbered on, his breathing irregular, moaning intermittently. The doctor had said Gordon would soon be dead.
"A matter of days at the most, Mrs Watson," he'd told Margaret, his wife. About 5.00am, a nurse appeared and quietly pulled the curtains apart, the ones which were screening Michael and his father from the rest of the ward.
"You look all-in, love. Go down to the kitchen and get some breakfast! I'll sit with your father while you're away."
Reluctantly, Michael agreed. He was feeling very tired and hungry. He followed the signs along the corridors of the quiet hospital and found his way to the kitchen. A chef was just heating the ovens before preparing the patients’ breakfast. He was a friendly bloke in a white coat and hat.
"Been up all night have you? Just hang on a minute, I'll soon fix you something."
He made Gordon a fry-up and chatted away about the Canaries' prospects during the next soccer season. Michael gave some stock responses automatically, his mind back in the ward with his father.
He ate some of the food quickly, thanked the cook and went back to the ward. His father was in the nearest, end bed, next to the doorway, the bed that was always bad news, the one they put you in when you were soon going to be on your way out.
There was a doctor with his father, bending over him, behind the screen of curtains which surrounded the bed. The nurse was waiting to speak to Michael. It's all right, Michael told himself. He's just checking in on him, he thought, knowing the reality already.
"I'm so sorry," the nurse whispered, her face blanching as Michael stood, staring down at his father from the foot of the bed. Somewhere in the ward, a phone started to ring. "I'm afraid you’ve missed him. He’s gone, went suddenly, just after you left." She touched his arm, a gesture of comfort. Michael didn't feel it.
Michael was completely gutted. Hadn’t it always been like that? Michael never there when he should have been! The old man had always been looking out for Michael. Always wanted the best for him. Thousands of good deeds, personal sacrifices, forgivings, a lifetime of giving and no taking. What, Michael pondered, had he ever done in return?
The only time he'd asked Michael to do anything big for him was when he'd begged to be taken home recently from the hospital. Michael felt he'd failed him, like always. It was no good telling himself that it was impossible to give him what he desired: the family could no longer lift him, nurse him, could not look after him. Hospital had been the only option.
Soon, Michael's wife and mother arrived. After days and nights of vigil over Gordon, they'd gone home for a sleep. They too had missed Gordon's ending. Not been there to help him through his last short agony.
"It was very peaceful at the end," offered the nurse who had been with him.
Before the family left the hospital, someone took the ring off his father's finger and gave it to Margaret. Margaret, quietly weeping, passed it silently on to Michael. Michael slipped it over one of his own fingers. It was the same ring that Gordon had had left to him by Henry, Michael’s Granddad back in 1938.. It was a funny feeling, suddenly realising he was now the oldest male, the so-called head of the family!
The depth and length of his bereavement shook Michael. He could not get the past out of his mind. The good times and the bad. All of the colourful characters in his Lancaster childhood, a childhood where his father had been his king. He recalled mini family triumphs and joys -- and the terrible tragedies.
He grieved for many days and nights. He became depressed. He started picking at spots on the back of his hands and forearms, creating bloody patches. He lost weight. He developed a twitching tick in his left cheek. He was becoming a nervous wreck.

His wife was sympathetic but could not comprehend it.

"You weren’t that close," she said.
"Weren't we?" he responded gloomily, "That's what you think! Just because we never made much of a fuss."
"I think it's the male menopause," she replied.
He carried on brooding, thinking back to what had been and what might have been.
Finally, he decided to go back to Lancaster, to visit the places of his childhood. It might help. See if there was anyone still there whom he knew. Take a few photographs. Maybe write a bit down. His father had been a good man, always putting himself second to the needs of others. Nobody spectacular, just a sort of unsung, town Hampden.
The funeral was in Norfolk, where Gordon had chosen to live the last 10 years of his life. He'd retired there to be near his son and grandchildren. It was a long way from his native Lancaster. The memorial service seemed feeble, inadequate, not enough to celebrate his father's life. The priest had never known him. Perhaps they should have had a Humanist’s funeral.
There and then, Michael decided he wanted his kids to know what their grandfather had been like when he was young. He wanted him to be remembered. He hoped they would be like their granddad when they grew up. Better than his own inferior self, who was nothing like so good a role model for them...

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