I am still trying to come to terms with the expected passing away last Sunday of my father George. There have been so many complex emotions burning inside me that I have honestly started to believe that there is indeed a double-headed monster in all of us. One is the benevolent angel waxing lyrical about life in general and its incessant variations, while the other is the kicking, snarling beast that brings out the negative human element.

You see, I knew and enjoyed my father’s presence only as a child. Even that presence was limited as he travelled the world cooking and managing cooks for the Royal Navy. But in my early teenage years he had left the island where, of course, he also had a family. From that moment in time, life had two colours for me: the white of the past made up of happy pictures, memorable occasions, wonderful and unique gifts from far-flung places on earth and football matches at the old Empire Stadium in Gzira; and the black of the future with its human mysteries and anxieties regarding school, exams, jobs, weddings, offspring and mum.

Caught between these two realities, one is bound to feel lost and suffocated. You tend to rebel against the shadows of the past in the hope of dictating the future. Your ferocious defence of the wisdom and perseverance that remains around you becomes an obsession until maturity brings you back down to the ground where, no surprise, life has gone on undisturbed and blatantly unworried about you or your axes for grinding.

When dad finally stopped being the focus of personal hate and self-pity, I deliberately chose to mix the white with the black. The grey that slowly came out no doubt symbolised the red of the blood. So many years later we met again, at Victoria’s railway station in London, not to restart what used to be such a happy, filial relationship, but to strike out the past in a blast of practicality that, over the years, may have even been verging more on a kind of friendship than anything else.

The old thoughts and the seething anger never left, as eager offspring and curious in-laws were gradually bundled into introductions in a foreign land.

But then, the ravages of time started making their physical claims. The World War Two veteran who had seen active service in dangerous places like North Africa, the shark-infested waters of the Sea of Japan and even the North Pole, was crumbling fast. A minuscule wartime splinter in the forehead suddenly had to be removed. Aching limbs slowly but surely led to immobility. You wanted to help, you wanted to forget and you wanted to stop the passage of time. Not one of them was possible. Old people’s homes in England are like human death-traps that thrive on one’s collected money of a lifetime. The brave, old, seafaring dog was dying like a hapless dog, alone and oblivious to his surroundings, even to his visiting, yes, loved ones.

When the news came we were lunching and wining, like we do most Sundays. I quickly suppressed the sudden emotional turmoil. Had I not always insisted I would take it all in my stride, the angry young man who, like everybody else, had grown up strongly too? Yet, torrid films of the past replayed automatically in the mind. He left when his old favourites, St George’s of Bormla, were still celebrating their return this season to the highest echelon of Maltese football. I was once a St George’s mascot and my annual Easter figolla was always the figure of a footballer wearing the St George’s kit.

He left when his body could no longer take it. Even the cliché “like a candle in the wind” is too strong. What is softer than a candle – a matchstick? What is lighter than a wind – a breeze?

The old black-and-white scenario resurfaced. In the black, I did not want to shed a single tear, this boy has grown – again – and is world-wary. In the white, I stole away to solitary angles of the home where I could be that very same boy, ungrown – to coin a word – and innocent, waiting for the next HMS ship to sail into Grand Harbour and for him, in splendid uniform, to finally march in with the goodies. A toy aeroplane, a football, a pair of football shoes, the latest portable typewriter, the latest four-track tape-recorder. Walking and talking dolls for my sisters, Eastern delicacies, Italian fashions for mum.

Now, as I sit and write, I remember readers of this newspaper have the fortnightly discomfort of meeting a smiling image of yours truly. It was taken after a good wine session in Hungary, of all places. It certainly doesn’t go down well with today’s piece of intimate fodder.

It belongs to the white side where one is entitled to think of the past without it being painful. To get nostalgic without being exceedingly sentimental. So it should stay there, going against the very grain of the article, but serving as a symbolic tribute to a man, a father, I lost twice.

It is tough losing your father twice. But I will not let the black side predominate. In fact I am signing off, right now, leaving you with the silly picture while I hopefully travel back for the funeral.