TOMORROW my father would have turned 64. It is almost a year since  he phoned me from London with bad news. I was driving through the misty suburban streets of Joburg in the dark when I answered my cellphone.

The line wasn’t clear. But I managed to hear my father say:  “I  have some bad news. I have  cancer.”

I remember that he hadn’t said ‘terminal’. He was deeply shaken, and we were devastated.  He died shortly after that call.

Losing a parent is a rite of passage, I suppose. It’s what you expect of life.

But, what nobody tells you is how a parent’s death will fundamentally change you.

On July 20 there was a real shift in my life as I stumbled into a new world without my father. The man responsible for bringing me into the world is gone.

I am not young, but my father was too young to die. I imagined more time with him, to finish unfinished business, nothing traumatic or dramatic. Just more time to get to know each other a little better. For him to spend more time with my children.

Anyway, it isn’t going to happen. And, shouldn’t I be “big” enough to cope? Maybe not. Are we ever “big” enough to lose a parent?

But something interesting is happening. I’ve become aware how, in many ways, my father is still growing on me.  I  feel closer to him now.

Somehow, in his absence, we’ve got to know each other a little better. In his absence there is no space for disappointment. Instead there has been space for reflection and memories.

In an envelope of old photos sent to me, I found  one, taken in Namibia, where I am in a swimming pool leaning against my father. We are watching my sister in the water. My little brother, next to my dad,  is laughing at her too.  It’s an intimate family moment. One I don’t remember, but one I will forever treasure.

I feel embraced, and comforted, by these gentle memories.

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