Cheerio!

Personal Post Alert! 

Bawls and Scowls and their antidote

When I was a tiny child, little more than a baby, I would bawl in protest at jokes and teasing I didn't enjoy. To boot, I was a curmudgeon who didn't enjoy surprises - I still don't react very well to then. Dad found a trick to stop the bawling and make me smile by standing before me and mimicking me. Each time I puckered up my face he'd chant "boo-bu-bu-waaaaah!"  and in time it became a game that turned me into a cheerful kid. Till the end of his days he'd tease me about this and thereafter mom continued to tease me. 

When I graduated from babyhood and became what was deemed a sensible being, I retained some of my silliness. Here's how Dad (himself a scowler and a frowner at times - I got the frown from him)  thought he'd fix this this by starting to  sing a song "You've Got To Smile When You Say Goodbye" to me whenever I broke in sobs on parting from loved ones, typically after a vacation together.
Dad pursued law in London from 1934-39 and traveled through Europe during some tense times in the build up to WW2. While his experience changed him in deep and lasting ways, the lighter side of life didn't miss him and he got himself a gramophone(stolen in 1971 by a lumpen thief who broke into our house, leaving him heartbroken) while he was there and a whole lot of western music records(78 rpm played with steel needles that came in little tin boxes with pictures of Nipper, the HMV dog). It was his first exposure and he got hooked to the popular music of the day as well as to Opera :) - maybe that was popular music too, who knows?

I'm guessing he lifted the word "Cheerio" from this song because that was his signature when he left the house to go to work or anywhere for that matter and we all picked it up from him. He also had his special knock (ok I'll record me doing that one day on the self same 95 year front door of my home and share here) 

No parting is final

Why am I rambling on about my dad and tears and frowns and goodbyes? Because today it's all of 27 years since he crossed over - quietly at 5:30 in the morning; not at home but in an ICU he had to be in overnight where he was surrounded by familiar friendly people who cared for him. I think he preferred it that way and so did we. 

His last word to me, said with a wistful smile after he was admitted and put on oxygen was "Sorry". He was trying to make light of it, but I understood.  He was smiling but I looked into his blue eyes (yes his eyes were blue) and their color seemed to have taken a green  tinge. I understood, he understood. I touched him one last time and reassured him "don't say sorry, say goodnight" and he answered "goodnight". I smiled, I did not cry.

A day and half later, when he left the house for the last time, borne aloft lovingly by four relative "strangers", and one a friend who had grown up in this house, I didn't cry. I held my mom's hand and we both held fast on to our smiles. We followed him down. My heart twisted just a tiny bit as they set him down on the pavement for reasons I never figured out. He was light but maybe their arms felt momentarily weary? Maybe the earth that had rung out to his eager footsteps as he had trodden that very path for the first time in 1948 to enter this house and make a new life for himself, wanted to embrace him and bless him on his journey forth into another adventure? In moments he was a vision melting into the distance as the vehicle slowly rolled away. "Bye, Cheerio" I whispered, clutching mom's hand. She was still holding on to her smile and the song slowly played in my head.