Becoming my father.
Hello hello.
To be honest, I'm not sure where this QOTW is heading. I foresee a lot of "my Mum/Dad was great and so am I" style answers, and an equal number of "my Mum/Dad had this embarrassing trait/did this stupid thing, and now I'm doing it" concoctions. Maybe even a tenuous Star Wars gag or three.
For my part, I'm not sure where I stand. I've always idolised my father. For some strange reason he was the guy I always wanted to be. If I hadn't been on holiday a fortnight ago he'd've been the subject of the "I'm your biggest fan" QOTW in some contrived roundabout way. Don't get me wrong, Mum was great too, but Dad was always the one I looked up to.
I learned his half-assed magic tricks and showed them to my school friends, confident they'd be amazed because my Dad had showed them to me.
I memorized his stupid stories, and told them to my college friends, knowing they'd find them interesting because my Dad had told them to me.
I remembered his offensive jokes and gleefully paraded them in front of my workmates, knowing they'd piss their grubby little kecks because I'd learned them from my Dad.
We had similar hair, similar dress sense, the same sense of humour, the same love of the nonsensical. I remember many happy evenings watching reruns of thunderbirds, both of us utterly entranced by the crappy little plastic men with their all-too-visible means of support, followed by an episode of Sykes on UKTV Gold. If I was lucky I'd be allowed to stay up for Walker: Texas Ranger.
Due to our vaguely effeminate hair we'd both been mistaken for girls on separate occasions within the space of a month, and I wasn't particularly embarrassed because it had happened to him too.
I discovered Monty Python and One Foot In The Grave, he discovered Red Dwarf and Spaced. I was pinned down and forced to listen to Dire Straits, The Eagles, Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds, he grudgingly admitted to liking Manic Street Preachers, Foo Fighters, Radiohead.
One day I hope to be just like him, forcing my outdated culture on Theophilous Jr., making him or her listen to Opeth and Tool, watch Ross Noble and Memento, read Terry Pratchett and Stephen King, play Shadow of the Colossus and Grand Theft Auto III on my cronky old PS2 while their cutting-edge Xbox 1080 or PS9 or Nintendo Shiit gathers dust, and I hope they find it as entertaining as I do now.

~Pause for effect~

About 18 months ago my grandfather died suddenly. We had to travel several hundred miles for the funeral, and Dad and I were pallbearers. It was the first time I'd seen many of my relatives for decades, and they were all staring at us with scrinched-up faces. It was also the first time I'd ever seen my Dad cry. Neither were experiences I'd wish to repeat, but I know I'll have to someday.
During this time my Dad went off the rails slightly. He couldn't sleep, turned to drink, and eventually had an affair. Mum's filed for divorce, the house is being sold, I've had to move out (to be fair, it's about time), and 'the other woman' has had to move in so he can afford the bills. I think he's fcuked up big time, and I think he thinks the same.
The phrase "a shadow of his former self" is thrown around with gleeful abandon, but I finally understand what it means. He's no longer bold and outspoken and funny, he's small and apologetic and meek. He's... different... regretful...
There was once a time, when I was 7 or 8, when turning into my Dad was a brilliant thought. Now I'm older, and I think I'm more like him than ever, and I hope to God that I never end up like he is now.
To this day I've never told him exactly how I feel about him, the same as he never did with his father. If I had the chance, I don't think I'd know what to say.
Possibly "thanks for making me what I am. Now let me find my own way from here".

Apologies for lack of laughosity. I guess it's something I've we've both lost recently.

Also, apologies for length. I guess it's hereditary. I don't know.
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Fri 1 May 2009, 3:26, 1 reply)

Don't you worry
that if you don't resolve things with your Dad, that when he dies, the same breakdown as appears to have happened to him when his father died could happen to you ?

You owe it to your future self - plus whoever you might be with / have fathered in the future - to try and resolve this.

Just a suggestion - but we are not condemned to repeat the sins of the fathers - as long as we do something concrete about it when we can.

Take care.
( I_Was_Mordred, Fri 1 May 2009, 8:27, closed)