For him

July 29 is actually a bit the same for me as September 11. You probably still know exactly where you were and with whom, and what you were doing when you heard that two planes flew into the Twin Towers. A strange comparison perhaps, but that's how I feel about the 29th: the day my father called me to let me know he was sick. My second-to-last working day with my former terror boss before I would start at Amayzine on August 3. It was bowel cancer, but I shouldn't worry too much, because everything would be fine and I definitely shouldn't think that he would kick the bucket in three months or something. In the end, it turned out to be five.

 
The man who had never called in sick a day in his life, he had cancer. And that phone call, that crazy conversation where I didn't really know if I should cry hard or laugh because you have to know: that father of mine always found himself hilarious, which made even this rotten conversation have a sort of silver lining. And when he says that it will be fine, then it will surely be fine.

 
I often had to deal with him too, being the youngest. Not that I was a troublesome child, quite the opposite. I wasn't a difficult teenager, I don't think anyone was in our home. But I wasn't easy in other ways. All those times he had to pick up a crying child from the airport because I just had to have a boyfriend in America His youngest, who practically constantly plundered his bank account because what I also just had to do was a lot of sports, which meant I was competing abroad every weekend (and that ain’t cheap). The daughter who unfortunately also inherited his impatience and short temper, which sometimes makes me come across as a bit too blunt but which I felt he should never call me out on because in that respect I was just a copy of him.

 
My dearest father who brilliantly took down an ex of mine through a Sinterklaas poem, because treating his daughters badly? Well, sorry, but then you could expect it too. Anyway, all his wise words whenever I struggled with heartache. That phone call you need so badly at such a moment, that the asshole doesn’t deserve you, which nowadays is no longer an option, making me choose to stop dating men.

 
I miss it. I miss him. But our relationship is far from over. Billie Holiday once sang: ‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces.’ And that’s really how it is. I even managed to achieve a new milestone last weekend. I played a Rod Stewart song really loud. Our song. Singing off-key, everything. And guess what? He was right there with me. ‘Where the ocean meets the sky, I’ll be sailing…’