18 Years
It was 18 years ago today that Darryl James Watts, my dad, died unexpectedly at the age of 47, from an aneurism. The night before, he called me to say he'd just applied for a job as a morgue attendent. Within 24 hours he was lying in one.
I turn 40 this year. It's hard to believe that I was only 21 when he died. It's harder still to believe that in a few more years I'll have outlived my old man. I still don't feel grown up, let alone almost equal to him in age.
He had a long black beard tinged with grey, a pot belly and a deep voice. At Teachers' College in the early 1960s, where he met my mum, he affected thick black-framed glasses because he thought they would help the working-class boy from Thornbury look more intellectual. Back then, driving across to St Kilda and learning to eat pasta and drink red wine was one of the most bohemian things you could do in Melbourne, according to my mum.
Her legs - dangling from the window of a train carriage on a group trip to Ayers Rock - were what first attracted him to her.
Oddly enough, I've never asked my mum what it was that first attracted her to dad. I think it's time to call her and find out.
I miss you, dad. I always will.
I turn 40 this year. It's hard to believe that I was only 21 when he died. It's harder still to believe that in a few more years I'll have outlived my old man. I still don't feel grown up, let alone almost equal to him in age.
He had a long black beard tinged with grey, a pot belly and a deep voice. At Teachers' College in the early 1960s, where he met my mum, he affected thick black-framed glasses because he thought they would help the working-class boy from Thornbury look more intellectual. Back then, driving across to St Kilda and learning to eat pasta and drink red wine was one of the most bohemian things you could do in Melbourne, according to my mum.
Her legs - dangling from the window of a train carriage on a group trip to Ayers Rock - were what first attracted him to her.
Oddly enough, I've never asked my mum what it was that first attracted her to dad. I think it's time to call her and find out.
I miss you, dad. I always will.
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