Because I am not sure how long I'll be at the hospital Monday, I am torn between driving to the airport and leaving my car, taking a taxi, or chancing public transport. But the 3.5 hour journey the day before has me sceptical and in the end, I take a taxi. The driver is patient with me whilst I finish my converstion with my brother, doubly patient when I realise I have to double back and collect my wallet. It turns out his father is 6 years into a 19 year sentence for sex crimes. We don't get into the specifics, but he wants to talk and I am a captive audience.
'What gets me is the stigma that will be with me for the rest of my life, let alone my father's life. You know, yeah. And then when he is potentially allowed to come out halfway through his sentence, he probably won't be allowed back to Colchester because of the nature of the offences, right. So it's Where's he gonna go? What? You know, I I understand both sides of people's arguments. I still go see him because he's dad. Yeah. And he brought me up to be the person I am, right? But I've never once said anybody, he's innocent. He is where he is because he's done what he's done. Right. Yeah. And that it's there's an illness or that there that there is there is something neurologically not right.'
I almost want to hug this man, he's so clearly carrying so much. His worry for his father makes it almost sound like he has a 4th child and I know that feeling. I feel it about my brother. Growing up, my mother was constantly pressuring me to take on guardianship of my brother. And it wasn't that I didn't want to be a support to my brother, I just didn't (and don't) feel that I am best suited to dictate how he lives his life. His priorities are different to mine. Also, whilst I can walk fine lines between 'legali -nelegali,' as my friend M says, I prefer to know that I'm mostly on the side of 'right' and 'legal.'
I also get that, about stigma. The bullying and whispering that accompanied my dad's court marshal in and 1992-1994 was intense. It didn't help that one of the jurors was the commanding officer on post and his daughter was in my class. And the stigma of divorce and separation...it can be isolating. People gossip out of boredom, envy, fascination, fear. But it seldom seems they want to listen or actually connect. I've been as guilty of it as anyone else, so any rocks I toss better be small pebbles, right?
It's early in Alexandria. Maybe, I think, I'll walk down to the Harbour before I meet T. I wonder briefly if moving back here is something to consider or if it's just restlessness. And this trip to Dayton - the next 3 days - are first I've made post funeral, which feels like an important shift, as though I am levelling up. Almost.
For the first time in a long while, that thought doesn't make me tear up. After last week - surfacely restful but exhausting in its own way - that feels like progress.
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