This Is How My Dad’s Suicide Shaped The Parent I Want To Be
I always saw my dad, in the best way, as a Del Boy-like character.
For those too young to know, Del Boy was the star of Only Fools And Horses, an ’80s sitcom in which a perpetually unsuccessful market trader with the gift of the gab. Along with his plonker sidekick younger brother, he constantly embarks on one deal after another – many of which backfire and cause them to only end up back where they started: skint, or counting a small win.
We all loved Del Boy and Rodney’s slapstick escapades – in much the same way we get a vicarious thrill from watching others slip on a banana skin. But for people like my Dad, who felt forced to replicate the same kind of risky ventures in their own lives in order to simply provide for his family, the results were rarely as fruitful or comedic.
My dad even had an uncanny resemblance to Del Boy, walking with that same cocksure swagger. I recall the many conversations about money making ventures he would have with my mum, who was always less averse risk, and how on rare days off from his job, he found himself in the local bookies having a flutter on horses or mingling with the local wheeler dealers.
“He who dares, wins”, Del Boy’s famed mantra, just never came true for my Dad. Between the laughs huddled on the sofa watching the show, I would catch a momentary glimpse of sadness in his eyes which in hindsight is clearer now than it was back then. After one too many dares that lost, and with his ongoing misfortunes taking a toll, my father took his own life one night, leaving behind an absence none of us could have prepared for.
Eighteen years since that day, and I still see the same issues Dad was dealing with affecting hardworking mums and dads across the country...
I had never imagined a life without Dad. And from that fateful day, that sense of security every young boy has with his father around just vanished forever. He had never been medically diagnosed with any form of mental illness, and as was often common amongst...
