Writing Angles: Fictional Eulogy of an Abattoir worker

As an assignment for uni this year I had to write a eulogy for a fictional character. Here's what I come up with. The story and characters are totally fictional, although some research was done into the mental impact of working in an abattoir.

I think everybody thinks their Dad, is the best dad in the world; I’m much the same, with one small difference. I don’t think mine is, I know it. Dad sacrificed so much and so willingly that for most of my childhood I took it for granted. Despised him for it sometimes, but that’s the kind of man my dad was. He never wanted recognition, never wanted anyone else to feel like they were a burden. I guess my dad was a bit like a superhero in that way.

Dad would probably be a bit embarrassed on a day like today. He wouldn’t think it was worth the fuss. I remember on his 60^th birthday, we threw him a huge party. All his favourite foods, his family, his friends, everyone was having a great time. Halfway through the night I realised I hadn’t seen my dad in hours. I went looking for him, he was outside, giving helium balloons to the kids and watching them float away. I asked him why he wasn’t inside enjoying his party, after all it was all for him, he said “oh that’s a bit much for me, but I’m having fun out here, and I am glad you are all having fun”.

Many of you won’t know this, but until my mum fell pregnant with me, dad was an aspiring writer and a vegetarian, something that his father wasn’t too pleased with. According to my mum, when dad told Granddad that he wanted to be an author Granddad said “you want to tell stories, I’ll tell you a story, once upon a time your father worked day and night to put you through school and he’d be damned if he’s going to let you waste it by trying to write silly books”. In many ways I think that shaped the kind of father my dad tried to be, maybe even the kind of man my dad tried to be.

Mum said that not long after that she found out she was pregnant. Dad, wanting to provide found a job working at the abattoir. At first he had planned to keep writing, this was just one of my dad’s many plans that got put aside for other people. I think maybe my dad was so hurt by my grandfather that he went out of his way to make sure I never felt like I owed him anything. To make sure I never felt like he was sacrificing anything for me.

I try to picture it, my dad working at that place in the early days and it still doesn’t fit. I only ever saw my dad’s work once. When my Aunt died and we picked him up from work, he told me that it was the shop that farmers bought their animals from. He let me feed his ‘favourite’, a lamb he named Snowflake. He was so gentle, so convincing. I remember for weeks I’d ask if we could keep Snowflake, if I could come visit. I had no idea. I still think about how hard that must have been for him.

I remember the first time I saw dad cry.  One afternoon I was sitting on the couch, eating a bowl of ice-cream whilst watching ‘The Looney Toons’. Dad was sitting on the couch beside me, I turned to him and said “isn’t that funny dad?”, and he burst into tears. I had no idea what was going on. I only recently found out that dad was one of the many workers who battled severe depression as a result of the harsh reality of his job. 

I asked my mum a year ago, what dad was like before all this, back when he was a vegetarian and a writer. She smiled, paused, her eyes lit up the way a 13 year-olds would when you mention the name of their first crush. She told me how my father and her had met when they were 15, how it felt like a life-time ago that he had asked her out on a date and she had said no. She said “he just smiled at me and said, not a date then, we’ll just see a movie together, it will be fun”. She told me she spent the whole night waiting for my dad to turn it into a date, and instead when he walked her home he just thanked her for the wonderful night. They kept having “non-dates” together until eventually she couldn’t resist. That was one of the many wonderful things about my dad. He had an uncanny ability to enjoy things as they were, as if what he wanted never really mattered.

I processed what my mum had told me and thought about my dad’s dreams. Thought about the sort of person he was and is, and I remembered the man who sat on the couch crying uncontrollably at seemingly nothing and it all led me to one conclusion. I had ruined my dad’s life. If it wasn’t for me, he’d have pursued writing, never even ate an animal himself let alone work in that horrible place. When I found out dad was sick I got up the courage and I asked him “Dad, do you think I ruined your life?”

Before I tell you what he said I should tell you this. After my dad was diagnosed with depression he spent some time unemployed. He was 33, without skills that translated to another area of business. At the time I was 15, the same age my dad was when he met my mother. I was in love for the first time, and I really wanted a pair of Nike Air max shoes, for $140. Obviously with my dad not working that wasn’t possible, in fact even if he was it wouldn’t have been, but I digress. At 15, I thought these ridiculously expensive shoes were going to help me win over the girl of my dreams. My dad told me that we couldn’t afford them, and I threw a tantrum. In the heat of the argument I said “Dad you’re ruining my life, why can’t you just work like everyone else’s dad”. Even then he didn’t argue, he didn’t yell, he didn’t tell me that the reason he didn’t work was because he took a job he was never made to do, to try and support me. He just looked at me and said calmly “you don’t mean that” and I replied “O.k. you’re not ruining my life, but you’re making it very hard”.

So there we were, dad and I. Dad, having recently been told he is terminally ill, he was old, he was frail, he was dying and his life never got close to what he’d hoped for, and now, his son, his only child had asked him whether having a child ruined his life. My dad lets out a long sigh, he looked me in the eye and said “Michael, you didn’t ruin my life”. He reached out and put his hand on my leg. Still holding my gaze, he smiled and said “but you made it very hard”. We laughed, and then we cried, and then we sat there, not saying anything, his hand on my leg and I realised, like always that was more for me than it was for him. That was his way, of letting me know, that whatever happened, he was ok with, so that I didn’t have to carry that guilt.

As I was going through some of dad’s things after he passed, I found a little leather bound notebook. It seems he’d taken to writing again in some way. It was an autobiography of sorts. The book was full of these rich descriptions of his struggle. His story told of how despite working there for over 10 years it never got easier. He never felt ok about what he was doing. There was the story of Snowflake, and how for weeks after my visit he’d go and feed snowflake cloves, talk to her and cry.

Reading my dad’s story I felt this whirling of emotion. It was full of all the nuances that made him such a great man. His story was filled with his humble honesty, a willingness to do what was needed, and a surprisingly gentle sensitivity. I never wanted to get to the end of this little notebook. I felt that as long as I was reading it I was still connected to him, still in conversation with him. I was learning about my dad as a man and not as a dad. I had a sneaky and illogical hope that his story would turn. That somewhere, somehow, against all odds I would read that he did write a novel and did get it published, that it was just another side of him that I never noticed. When I remembered that I actually knew this story and knew how it ended, I was heartbroken. I felt like my dad had got an unfair deal. He asked for nothing, he worked hard, he looked after his family, he always looked on the bright side of life and he hadn’t been rewarded with riches. Just when I started to be weighed down with these thoughts, I reached the end of his book and he had left me one last gift. It was as if, like always, dad had again wanted to make sure I didn’t feel bad on his behalf, so he wrote:

 “As most lie in bed, waiting for sleep, it’s natural to wonder if we’ve made the most of our waking hours. If there was something we could have done differently, something we could have done better. I tell you now there is nothing I would have changed. I only need to look at my wife, my son Michael, and I know that I have tasted the sweetest success. In my own way, I have given more to the world through them than I have given in any other way. Their love is worth the love of thousands and their happiness, my greatest reward. When I wanted to be a writer I would often say, “If I could help just one person with my stories, inspire them, touch them, what an amazing achievement that would be”. I look at Michael and I know I have inspired, taught and raised a man; his story is the greatest I have ever created and nothing else can compare to that”.

Dad, I love you, I love you for the man you were and the man you have helped me to become. I was going to say I can only hope to be the sort of man that makes you proud, but I know that you’ve done such a good job at setting an example and raising me that I don’t need to hope. Dad, I will miss you every day and I just want you to know that your death hasn’t ruined my life; but it has made it very hard.