You're not wrong there Norman.
When my father last came to visit me in Oz, one particular night when we had some time alone to ourselves, we chatted about the Boro and relived some special
memories that we had shared together over the years.
Out of the blue, he looked at me and asked " is there anything that you would like to ask me son?"
I had always been brought up to respect peoples privacy and also been told that people will only tell you what they want you to know and that I should leave it at that.
I was caught off guard and replied " No dad not really, what do you mean?"
He said " Oh I don't know son, I just thought you might want to ask me some things, you know, like your mam or why we emigrated, you know.?"
Again and stupidly I said " No dad, it's alright.
It wasn't until, as it turned out, we had given our last smile to one another when waving him goodbye at the airport that I had an overwhelming feeling that
I would never see him again.
I started to cry as he disappeared behind the customs door when my wife put her arms around me and told me not to be silly and that we have done this
thousands of times before and that we will be back in England again one day soon.
But I just knew, I'd never had this feeling before in all the times that we had said goodbye previously. I just knew. And it was to be.
It was only about four months later before I got the dreaded call from England to say that he had passed.
It was only then that I realised how many questions that I actually had but it was far too late.
Hope nobody else makes the same mistake as I did.
