to try and grab me. But I just held her hand quickly, gave her a kiss, and was on my way across the road.
My friend’s mother was there on the pavement outside our house to meet me, and she was extra friendly. That was a bit odd, too, as she never came to our door to pick me up or chat.
Even more special, I thought, she’s being really nice; gonna be a great Christmas then. It was time to go and have fun.
My friend and I stayed awake into the early hours of the morning talking about what we were going to get for Christmas, especially the big present from our dads. I would always take a stash of sweets over on sleepovers and it was a special occasion to have a midnight feast and lay all the chocolates and treats over the floor while the parents were sleeping. My kids do this today.
The next morning, I sat at the breakfast table munching through my Sugar Puffs while reading the packet about the Honey Monster out loud to my friend and laughing. I could hear my friend’s mother on the phone in the hall just beside the door to the lounge we were eating in. Her voice was quiet and subdued. She hung up, came into the room, and walked over to the cooker.
That must have been some argument she had, I thought as she came over to put the scrambled eggs on the table. Then she walked over and put her hand on my shoulder. I thought it was even more strange for her to do that. My friend and I just giggled.
“Mum, you okay?” asked my friend, looking puzzled.
She said nothing and went back to the kitchen to work out her next move.
“Think I had better go,” I said to my friend.
Of course, his mother knew that the next time she saw me she would see a broken kid who wouldn’t smile for months. She was almost speechless. My dad was my rock.
I got home, and my mother was waiting in the hall. I knew instantly that something terrible had happened.
“Angus, it’s dad; he’s gone.” There was a long pause as she tried to compose herself. “He’s gone somewhere beautiful, Angus, a place where he will be really happy.” Now she was struggling to talk. “Angus, it’s your father; he’s gone,” she repeated.
She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “dead,” but she carried on talking. I got the odd words like “cancer,” “sorry,” and “died,” but now my head was spinning like a hornet’s nest. I wanted to hide, escape, or die. Surely, she was drunk again. He’ll come back of course from this “somewhere beautiful.”
And so came the end of the first chapter of my life. I wanted a nice new one, a life without chocolate and candy, even. Yes, I would never eat sweets ever again, I promised, I would say to my gods, if only it meant being able to have him back.
Christmas Day came, and there I sat in disbelief in the lounge, staring at the empty chair where my father used to sit. Now crying uncontrollably, I reached out for my present to him, not knowing whom to give it to as I held it in my shaking hands. I put it down and took a big present from under the tree to console myself and read the label.
“Happy Christmas, my beautiful son, I love you so much. Dad”
I stared at the sunken hollow in the chair where he had sat for so long, and then I opened his present to me. It was a tennis racket, the last present I ever received from my father, from a man I hardly had time to get to know. I sat on the carpet holding the racket, with my mother crying in the background watching over me. I dreamed of the days when I was the ball boy running around the tennis court in our local park, handing balls to my father when he was so fit and strong and smiling back at me. I desperately held onto all I had left, images and memories of his smiling face.
I threw my fist of earth onto the oak lid of my father’s coffin and watched the last evidence of my dad go down forever. I wanted to be with him at the bottom of the grave.
For the next few weeks and even after the funeral, I spent a lot of time by the drafty front door waiting and hoping for my dad to come home. Perhaps there had been some kind of mistake? After all, my mother was drunk all the time, especially now! And, well, she had probably lost it completely and forgotten he had just gone away for a few days and it was the wrong man in the grave. I thought of anything so I could avoid the truth, and refused to believe he was really gone. Day after day I just wished he would come back.
My crying continued and almost every night I sat in the hallway in the same spot on some boxes of back issues of the family magazine while the dogs looked on, twisting their heads left to right, watching every person that passed our front lounge window. We somehow willed ourselves to believe he would come home again.
Eventually the tears dried up. He wasn’t coming home, and I had nothing left. My heart was on the floor, exposed to anyone who wanted to walk over it and kick it aside.
I sunk deeper into my darkness and my mother further into the jaws of her drunken stupors. We scraped along, misfiring at every junction, stalling in and out of our pain. The same questions came up again and again: Why and what could I have done? It was at this point that I felt I had to be a new Angus. The old one would not survive all this. I had to make a choice, either go up or down. I think we all have a time to choose the darkness or the light. That’s what life is for. Some of us get a lesson a little earlier than others.
This was my biggest potential turning point, but I felt I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I was on the verge of giving up, but then two very curious things happened—very strange things indeed.
Chapter 4
Strange Visitors to Number 22
A month after the funeral, I woke up in the middle of the night. It was very quiet, and I was fully alert. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I made out the shape of a figure coming through the bedroom door and moving toward me. I was petrified, of course, and yanked the duvet up to my face, ready to dive under the covers until it was much lighter. But an unexpected feeling of calm came over me.
I opened my eyes wider to be sure, and there he was. A tall figure in the dark was coming toward my bed. I couldn’t make out a face clearly, but I sensed a paternal presence. He glided across to the side of my bed without any noise or movement of the air. I decided to hide again. This was just plain scary.
There was no conversation, no quick movements or gestures, just a majestic being coming to look over me. My heart was racing. Was it a little silly to call out “Dad?” Could it really be him? The questions were boiling over one after the other.
I still wonder if it could have been an intruder, my mother, or someone else. But I know deep down who it was. I knew right away it was the spirit of my father.
I sat up in bed (still holding the covers to my face) in amazement but feeling this figure radiate its magnificent presence. Everything would be okay, I felt. It’s all meant to be, and the being was really very proud of me.
He wasn’t there for long, just a minute or so before he vanished. I kept my father’s visit my secret for many years afterward. I wouldn't expect anyone to believe me, but whether it was a dream or real, it answered a question for me, and I now know that we live on after death.
When things like this happen to you at such a young age, you start life with an open mind. I now see it as a true blessing. Experiencing my father’s passing sculptured
