I miss my father. I miss him all the time. He flits in and out of my mind constantly, as people we love do. There is so much to remind me of him. Even if there wasn't he would still be there, making his presence felt; trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. 

My first memory is of him wrapping me up in a blanket, after an air raid warning and dashing down to the shelter in our home in Rabat. It is a distinct memory. I must have been petrified as a two or three-year-old suddenly awakened to the noise of a shrill siren in the dead of night.

He was both spiritual and religious which saw him through the rough and tumble of a life in which he constantly reminded himself (and us) that we are not of this world but there is a life to come and a God we shall have to face one day. He never elaborated but the way he lived said it all.

This is how we remember our father, at his desk 

He kept a skull on his desk a constant reminder of an end which no one can escape. 

He was not one for shouting at us. A mere look was enough to keep us as far away from mischief as possible, out of fear and respect.

When the parents of a friend of mine bought her a car he was already unhappy that we were going out with it regularly. When we returned from some outing she would park it in front of our house and we would sit there and chat. He strongly disapproved of two young girls sitting in a car. So, he would sit in his dressing gown, on one of the mock Hamlet chairs in the hall until I came in. He never said anything. But I felt so uncomfortable, sitting there chatting while knowing that to him this was a waste of his time, that I didn't dare linger.

He got a stroke in his early 50s. Devastating for all of us especially my mother. He had to get back to work. There was no Plan B. Who was going to feed his family to which he was so completely devoted? His complete Faith and determination were crucial. He gave up all his favourite foods, did the rudimentary exercises prescribed and returned to work for the next twenty years or so, never losing his enthusiasm for his intellectual pursuits, continuing to play his vinyl records of opera on a Sunday morning until the end. Of course, the massive stroke left him incapacitated in more ways than one but he never gave up.

An undated photograph taken here or in Gozo. He was very proud that he was Gozitan

We were smoking in our late teens and twenties because it was fashionable and we thought it sophisticated. We were secret smokers at home as my father made it quite clear that he did not wish us to smoke. He was a heavy smoker and my mother too, was a smoker.   However disobeying orders from time to time, sister number 2 and myself locked ourselves up in our bathroom and had a fag there while chatting away as we took it in turns to take a bath. We kept the window wide open, leaving no evidence. However, our darling Sicilian friend, Lianna, now in the Casino in the sky, one day was not so careful. Everyone smoked in her family, even in bed and in the bath.  One day, on one of her frequent visits, she left clear evidence of our disobedience: two cigarette butts in a tooth mug. We realised this when we saw the mug on Papa's desk, a silent witness, sitting there admonishing us. My father never referred to it. Never said a word. We learnt our lesson anyway. He was strict but he was fair.

Prayer was important in his life. He believed in a power beyond man. My parents went to Mass every single day of the week, down to St Patrick's or L'Oratorio or the Ursuline nuns, just down the road. At mealtimes when we were all there it was a prayer before meals and a  Requiescant in pace, but not before washing our hands thoroughly. At the end of the meal we would queue up for Cod Liver Oil, according to him, 'the finest sweet.'

In the evenings he would gather us round him for the recitation of the Holy Rosary.  He kept an old thick black diary in which he pasted in all sorts of holy pictures and prayers. We went through them all and if someone happened to giggle during the five decades then we would start it all over again, much to our dismay, especially if we had made plans to go out.

He hated frivolity. As to bullshit he saw right through it.

My mother loved Carnival which was evidently an important event in her youth. My father at first, would not let her dress us up but finally relented. But it really wasn't his thing. Carnival teaparties when we were young were tolerated but there was never any question of joining a company and displaying ourselves on some carnival float. We didn't even dare ask. Decent girls simply didn't do that sort of thing, in his book.

He never mentioned football which I suppose he considered frivolous and a waste of time.

When I finally met the man I wanted to marry he came to live with us for six months because of certain circumstances,  so my father got to know him fairly well. I called him Guy and my father thought that frivolous too until I told him that his full name was Gaetan. He was appeased. He told us immediately that he was going to write to the archbishop of Mauritius to ask about his background. Once clearance came he was happy with my fiancé. They said the Angelus in Latin together. My father loved Latin and so did my husband. My father's approval was sealed.

My father was a loyal and loving husband to my mother until the end. When she became very ill he stayed by her bedside and never moved except to go to the bathroom. He imported all kinds of medicines and vitamin food from abroad which we now know were useless. He tried so hard to save her life. For a few months one of his priest friends managed to bring a big painting from some church, which was considered miraculous. But the miracle did not happen.

He was a highly intelligent man of vision. Somehow, he knew what to do by some kind of instinct. I will not go on. To those of us who knew him it is unnecessary. To those who didn't unimportant.

Grief is complicated. We grieve the person we lost. We grieve all the important things they have missed and will continue to miss. We miss the dead we have loved in ways we cannot even explain. The wish to meet again never leaves us.

In a letter to a friend John Keats  wrote: "Is there another life? Shall I awake and find all this a dream? There must be, we cannot be created for this sort of suffering."

So we go on speculating and contemplating, theorising and arguing to divert us till we know the truth.

We miss  you papa.

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