On Families and Guilt

It’s the little things that haunt you later. When I look back at my life, I don’t beat myself up over the big things- most of them were unavoidable; just me making the best decision I could at the time. I regret things like not letting my dad get fish and chips. I was a young, new mother, and my father visited from Japan to see his grandson and me. I hadn’t seen him in many years, so it was a big deal. One day, after driving me around, he got a twinkle of delight in his eye, and said, “You know what I’d REALLY like to have? Some fish and chips!” He’d spent the last ten years in Japan, and fish and chips was one thing he missed about Australia. As children my siblings and I had hated fish, but I had recently acquired a taste for it- as long as it was fresh, preferably served in a fine-dining restaurant. “Go and ask him if it’s fresh,” I said. My dad returned and said, “I asked him if it was fresh, and he said, “fresh frozen.” Then I said I had to check if that was good enough. I kind of felt bad for the guy.” “Well, we can get it if you want.” Dad was deferring as ever: “Well, now I’ve already left, so we can make a decision, what do you think everyone would like?” “The others don’t really like fish- how about we get barbequed chicken instead?” And that is what we did. My father didn’t end up getting fish and chips on that visit. And for years I couldn’t stop beating myself up over it. Firstly because I made him be ruder than he would have liked to have been to the poor shop owner, and secondly because I denied him his once-in-a-decade chance to taste one of his old favourites. Of course, at the time, I was planning to take him to a fancy fish and chips shop on the waterfront that served fresh fish, but that didn’t end up happening. Horror at my own snobbery is one of the facets that make this particular memory so painful, but I wonder why it stayed with me so long? I visited Dad in Japan last year, told him the story and apologised, but he doesn’t even remember it. It hurts nobody but me now, because for some reason I can’t forgive myself. Perhaps because Dad can’t remember, so he CAN’T forgive me? But it’s not hurting him now. In my mind, the past seems to exist continuously. Even if THIS Dad doesn’t remember, it DID happen to THAT Dad. I suffer similar feelings over things that happened when my son was a baby. He doesn’t remember that I had to leave him screaming with someone else- but I do. And I cuddle and kiss him excessively now, trying to make up for those days, trying to soothe that screaming baby of the past. And he’s totally fine. But in my mind, that screaming baby will always co-exist with the happy one, and the precocious pre-schooler, and the sassy boy he has now become. Time isn’t linear for me. My grandmother is still alive to me, both the one who bounced me on her knee as a toddler, and the one who I met as an adult, chain-smoking as emphysema clutched her around the lungs and took her. The one I met only through her memories is real to me too; the chic Boston girl who “had good legs and wasn’t afraid to show’m”, and who took up the cancer sticks because “everyone who was anyone smoked”. I think we truly love someone when we see all of them at once; the child, the teenager, the adult. We see the inherited traits that make them who they are. Those people never die as long as they are remembered. And so, the fish-and-chips incident is still happening, and will always BE happening as long as I have my memory. If my dad makes another trip to Australia, we’re going straight to the CLOSEST fish-and-chips shop to make it right. And leaving a tip. And my son will continue to receive too many cuddles as long as I have arms.