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| Anne-Marie, 13 from Truro, Cornwall |
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He was never there for me - why should I drop everything now he's sick?
Anne-Marie lives with her mum in Cornwall. Her dad is French Canadian and lives in Montreal.
I can remember the day he left, cos he gave me a beautiful doll, Josephine, with yellow ringlets. He said he was going to visit his sister. I didn’t even wave him goodbye, I was so busy with Josephine.
That was seven years ago. When I realised he wasn’t coming back I cut Josephine’s hair off. She looked stupid then, and I binned her.
We got along okay without him I guess. Mum’s got a boyfriend called Steve now. He works in a sports shop and gets me cool trainers. I spend every other Christmas there with dad. He speaks French now. Sometimes I pretend I’ve forgotten it, so he has to talk English. He got ill with something called pancreanitis last year. Mum said it was cos he drinks too much.
When he called two weeks ago, instead of passing the phone straight to me, mum shut the door and talked for ages. When she came out, she said he had cancer of the pancreas, and wanted me to come out soon as possible.
Mum said no. She knew I had a school trip to France coming up that I was looking forward to. Even if we cancelled, she couldn’t take time off work to come with me – and he might be too ill to look after me.
At first all I felt was relieved. Me and my friends had been planning this French trip for months. Dad was never there for me when I was growing up, so why should I drop everything now he’d got sick? Anyway, like mum said, it was probably his fault for drinking too much.
But I kept thinking imagining him waiting for me. Somehow I couldn’t get excited about France any more. I really wanted to talk about it with mum, but once she’s made up her mind you can’t budge her.
Steve started to really get on my nerves too. The last straw was when he turned up for dinner with two bottles of wine…I flipped out and told mum she was a hypocrite, blaming dad for something that she did herself.
Mum lost her rag and sent me to my room. Through the door I could hear Steve saying maybe I was upset at missing a last chance to be with my dad. When he put it like that, it made me feel awful. I hadn’t imagined dad dying. When mum came to talk to me, I was crying my eyes out.
Mum was amazing after that. She cancelled the school trip and got me a ticket to Montreal. She asked the airline staff to look after me on the flight, and talked to my aunt so I could stay with her if dad was too ill to have me.
I don’t know what to expect when I see him. Maybe he’ll be okay and this is all a big scare. Maybe I’ll go back to being mad at him. Right now I just want to see his face.
Anne-Marie spent 10 days in Canada with her dad. He was able to leave hospital, and they made the most of each other’s company. Her dad’s health deteriorated soon after this stay, and he died three months later. Anne-Marie’s memories of their time together are very precious to her.
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