Bittersweet: A Memoir. Angus Kennedy

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 me into what I had to be and what I have chosen to be. Death for me is so natural, so normal.

      After this death and visitation, and sensing the inescapable looming death of my mother, it was all systems go to find out about life after death, the meaning of life, and what it is for. I possessed a new strength. I had a new sort of personal “dad power.”

      I realized that if I was careful and responsible with what I asked for, I could ask for anything and it would happen. It works to this day. It has to be something that will be of benefit to humanity; I never ask for money, though I am so tempted (I mean, is it me or have the blasted gas bills tripled?). I have developed this skill considerably. You can call it cosmic ordering, religion, prayer, mind control, law of attraction, or whatever you like—you could get an old pair of underpants to make something happen if you really believe in it.

      My father’s death was, at least, a learning. Faith is knowing there are always good reasons for bad things, and the only way to learn how to get up again is to keep your mind open. When someone dies on Earth, we may mourn, but they celebrate the return in heaven.

      And so I embarked on my mission. I had big questions: Why do we die? Why was I born? Why are people so horrible to one another? Why did my dad die and not the dad of one of my friends? What was so different about me, why me? Where did I go wrong? What does “God” mean? My questions were too much for a desperately inadequate government-set school indoctrination curriculum to answer. Needless to say, when I returned to school, I never wanted to learn anything from my lovely teachers. I only wanted to know why I was singled out so frequently for an alternative life of learning.

      Seeing the apparition lifted my spirit, but I struggled as I watched my mother deteriorate. Things went downhill hugely. And then, as if it was all planned, another peculiar thing happened.

      —

      Prospects were definitely looking a bit grim. I was now a fatherless and a virtually motherless kid—but hey, she was still alive, and that was something. I hung onto my mum, what was left of her anyway. Whether we liked it or not, we were set to survive for the next few years with our self-regulated interruptions of carbs and booze.

      I knew I was on rails and approaching a freefall toward a new darkness, a sinister type that I had never experienced. The weeks passed as I continued to wait by the front door for my father.

      We had a beautiful original Edwardian stained-glass window set into the top of our oak front door, and normally you could see the fragmented silhouette of the person behind it when they knocked on the door. This time I couldn’t see anyone at all after the knocker sounded. How could the bell ring with no one there? It must have been around 7:00 in the evening. It was early in the new year, and I could hear the pathetic whistles and light pops from cheap fireworks sold by the corner shop, the sorts of things the neighbors seemed to think (rather worryingly) were truly amazing.

      The hallway was an even bigger mess now: my bicycle was upside down, sitting on its handlebars with a tire puncture that I couldn’t be bothered to repair. Every month even more back issues for the magazine archives arrived in boxes from the printer. They just sat lining the walls as no one could be bothered to carry them anywhere. At times, it was difficult just to get to the door at all.

      The house was changing. Every now and then I would have to take a second look around, as I was sure that things looked different. I later discovered that inherited items of Victorian furniture would mysteriously disappear because they were being auctioned off for cash.

      We had a bit of a cash problem now that my father was gone. There didn’t seem to be a juicy life insurance policy to cash in, and the magazine revenues had dropped dramatically. I was at the stage of having to ask people on the Muswell Hill Broadway, the nearby shopping street, for a few pennies. I never saw it as begging, but I guess it was, as I was asking for money. But I really needed it, and my mum never seemed to have any. Any penny that entered the house was usually spent on more wine and spirits. So, without really thinking about it, I progressed to the art of selling the sweets.