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Letter to my father

11th November 2011 by Helena 2 Comments  

I have just got back from Italy where I was visiting my father, who is ill in hospital. He will be 87 in December, but it was still a shock to see him so weak and, well OLD, for the first time ever.
I wrote him a letter on the way back to the airport because there was so much I wanted to say. I call him biologico, because by the time I really got to know him, it was too late for daddy.

Here it is in parts…

Caro Biologico

I’m not sure I will ever send you this letter, but I want to write it anyway, because there are so many things I want to say to you and to remember about this visit, which I don’t know how else to express.

We said goodbye three hours ago. I left you, in your wheelchair, with my mother standing beside you, you were pulling a face and she was waving, smiling, trying not to cry. You looked like any other old couple in the hospital; grey and wrinkly and together. No one would have guessed you haven’t been together since I was two. As a child all I ever wanted was to have normal parents who were together, to have you both in the same room, to be able to say “my parents” and not follow it with “split up when I was two”. Of course there is nothing “normal” about either of you, thank god, but as a child for some reason normality was all I craved. As an adult I’m grateful to you both that I never had it.

I don’t know what I expected, in what state I thought I would find you, but I certainly didn’t think you would be so THIN. You’ve never been thin. I remember those zany diets you used to do, the ‘eat only grapes for a week’ diet and then how you would give something up, like chocolate, and say “for me chocolate does not exist.”

There were times when you got quite fat, but you always carried it off, with that elegant stance and the ubiquitous Fedora hat. Now that hat sits on your bookshelf at home.

And talking of elegance, you still look like an aristocrat, even in a wheelchair. You hold your head high as you always did, and your eyes are still sparkling, intelligent. You don’t belong there. I know it’s not their fault, the staff probably try their best, but the smell of shit and death and OLD PEOPLE is stultifying. I fear if you stay, you will just sink further into that world, to a point of no return.

I hate seeing you like this. It makes me want to give up my job and move to Novafeltria to take care of you, I just believe that somehow if I could get you back to your work, you would be cured, because I’m sure not being able to write is literally killing you. You always told me never to go a day without writing; nulla dies sine linea, you once wrote on a scrap of paper, I have it framed on my wall at home.

You did talk about finishing your novel. I so hope you do. But maybe that’s unrealistic, because if we’re honest, only really about ten per cent of you is present. It’s so depressing seeing flashes of your old self; your humour, your brilliance, your intellect, and realizing that it is buried deep down now and may never surface again. I know your mind still works, but you can’t articulate as you used to. When I told you that I had done some writing at your desk, you said the longest sentence you had said to me during the entire three days; “Mi fa piacere.” You probably wouldn’t say that if you’d known what I was writing, another “shitting” novel as you would call it.

And when I told you that one of my books is going to be published in Germany, your face lit up. You know the importance of the German publishing market, something the cabbages around you (bless them) wouldn’t have known when they were compos mentis.

You reaction to Olivia was lovely. The way you stroked her face last night when we were leaving made me cry, and I cry every time I think about it. I suppose because you were saying goodbye.  Her reaction has been surprising, she doesn’t really know you that well, and yet has wept and keeps saying she doesn’t want to leave you.

I have used many words to describe you, in books, in articles, to other people. Words like brilliant, bullying, egotistic, charming, larger-than-life, amusing. One word I would never have used is the word that best sums you up now; sweet. I have never seen you so affectionate and kind. Your smile is really sweet now, I don’t know what’s happened, I like it, but I would rather have the old Biologico who tells Olivia she speaks French “comme une vache Espagnol” and harasses me for not writing “proper” books.

But your new sweetness seems to have won you many admirers there, I have never seen a man made such a fuss of, you really are among friends. Carmela is a joy, as is Agostina, and I can’t believe the old woman with a hole in her leg up the hall was the chicken keeper at Carpegna, your old summer house.

Do you remember when we first went there? The chicken farmer said she remembers me being very brave on a vast horse. I wasn’t brave, I was terrified. Not only of the horse, but of you and this whole new family I knew nothing about. Now when I come back, especially on this trip, names and places like Perticara and Malatesta feel like they’re part of me, I get a sense of belonging from this part of Italy, which I suppose it what you were always trying to instill in me with all your talk of “radice.”

This summer when we were all with my mother, you told the children, when they asked why you didn’t have any eyebrows, that you cut them off and sent them to your enemies, who eat them and then die. Yesterday I cut your eyebrows, I can’t bear all that sprouting hair. There is plenty to kill all your enemies, though I think you have probably outlived them all, and now you’re so sweet, you probably won’t make any more.

When I had finished, I handed you a mirror. You looked in it and said “grazie” very firmly. It’s good to see there’s still a certain amount of vanity going on, it makes me hope that you’re not about to give up.

I am already beginning to regret that we didn’t spend more time together. I had a plan to come and see you at Christmas, to interview you and to have Bea film our discussions. There are so many things I want to talk to you about.  I think you would make a great interviewee.

See you at Christmas I hope, biologico.

Con molto affetto

La tua figlia


Filed Under: Family, Life, blog -->, writing Tagged With: father, letter

2 thoughts on Letter to my father

  • Jessica says:
    14th November 2011 at 11:10 am

    So, so moving. I hope you do send it to him. Our parents deserve to know how much they mean to us. Thanks for sharing this. It’s made me think about what I need to share with my parents. I hope your father does indeed rally and starts to feel better soon.

  • mimi says:
    14th November 2011 at 3:36 pm

    I too really hope he rallies and gets better, he looks frail in that photo, but hospital can do that too.
    Your letter is beautiful, I’m sure he would love to read it, or have it read to him.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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