45 but fortified? Part 1

Day one of my blog trying to make sense of what being a dad of two at 45 really means. I hope that this may in some small way, help, even, if I were to be so bold, enlighten other 40 something dads or indeed parents in their 40's. It may even shed some light for any long suffering partners / wives out there on what possibly swirls around the mind of the person you share the parental responsibility with. Or in this particular piece, my 45 year old mind at least. 
If you're anything like me, you'll think that you aren't good enough, that you don't measure up. A feeling of being third best on a good day. Always thinking that other guys do it better. Me? Well I look at my kids and think I don't deserve their love. If they knew the real me, why would they waste their love and emotional intelligence on me? I hear them tell me they love me. Of course I reply with I love you too. I mean this statement with all of my being and more. I think this is where I struggle at times. I feel as though my words are hollow and can disappear as quickly as dust in the wind. I feel as though I have to do something tangible to accompany the words, somehow to justify them and their existence once my mouth has given them life.
I often wonder where these feelings of not measuring up come from. My upbringing was full of love from both of my parents. My mum was strict when needed, but everything she did was with a strong undercurrent of love. The same for my dad. He was the more lenient of my parents with both myself and my brother, but everything he did for us, whether I thought he was right, or at times, I thought both parents favoured my older brother, it was always done with love. And of course always with the best interests of us in mind. 
I can see how right they were now being 45 and a parent myself. 
Back then, my pre-teen and mid teen mind could not compute what they were saying was generally for my own good.
There was an extremely dark time in my childhood that could have shaped how I have turned out. I don't know for certain as I am no psychologist, but seeing my older brother hit by a car and nearly killed back in 1984 certainly changed my world forever.
I was 12 years old. My brother 13, almost 14. He was being chaperone, walking me to our local village doctors surgery. The reason? I had a bad big toe, self inflicted by being constantly picked no doubt. I remember being a bit of a nail picker, toe or finger, it didn't seem to matter much! Anyhow, I was obviously deemed not sensible enough to make this journey alone, so the responsibility fell upon my brother. 
He dutifully obeyed. 
I am aware dear reader that I have digressed from the initial reason for this blog, however, I feel this all adds up to who I am today, and how this impacts my attempts at being a father in his mid 40's.
So there we were, my brother and I ambling down the road we lived on, on our way to the never reached destination, our doctors surgery. We, for some reason or another I recall had a tennis ball with which we were playing some sort of football game, passing it to each other along the road. I think I misplaced a pass, or my brother did, this part of my memory now dimming, whoever it was, I remember a minor argument ensuing, resulting in some cross words. 
Now thinking back and bearing in mind this was over 30 years ago, I think, I told my brother to get lost and that I hated him or scathing words to that effect. 
Those scathing words have had a deep and everlasting impact on me. For moments later, my brother was laying 200 yards further down in the main road, a broken, bloodied and twisted mess. Shattered bones, head and face ripped apart. I remember vividly his legs and arms bent in completely unnatural positions. I also remember vividly now, as if this hideous grotesque moment were being replayed to me on a large screen in ultra high definition, that when he got hit by the car, he rose into the air, twisting and turning, it seemed to me then as clear as the air on a mid winters morning, that he was moving through the air in slow motion. 
My world collapsed in on me in that very moment. Time immediately stood still like a scolded child being repremanded by their parents. Audibly, my world muffled, with no sounds making sense.
I remember hearing a blood curdling scream pierce the air, making my muffled world tumble uncontrollably back to the here and agonising now. I realised that the scream was coming from my mouth.
I can't recall a time since he got hit by the car, and during the months which followed, of having felt so alone and insignificant in the world.
 I will add some clarity to how my brother got into taking on a car and losing spectacularly. 
The road we lived on was what would be deemed now a private road not laid with tar mac. So, it wasn't a very busy road at all, hence why we could play football with the tennis ball. At the bottom of our road ran the main village road. We got to the main road, and had only walked a short way along when we saw some of my brothers friends. 
My brother stopped to talk to them. 
This almost proved to be a fatal decision for my brother. I was a few paces away as I didn't want to be in the way, or crowd my brothers coolness!
Within minutes, he had accidentally stepped backwards into the road, to then be struck by the car.
What followed felt as though I had been dumped into a surreal alien world that made very little sense. Behind the car that struck my brother was a builders type van. The man who was driving it had stopped and got out. I never learnt of his name. I have always thought of him as big bear! He was a big man, with as far as I can remember a rather large belly. He saw I was in some distress, so just wrapped both his large arms around me and gave me a hug. It was what at the time I could imagine, hugging a bear felt like. He held onto me until one of the residents from a nearby house came out to see if she could help. 
From the moment the accident happened, my world was paused. It was as if a mysterious group of invisible time stopping beings had descended into my world. Seen the hideous carnage playing out before them, and not liking what they were seeing, put my life into limbo. Various other things happened before he was rushed to hospital, however, I feel I have opened up enough at this point. 
From there, I stayed with friends and family, predominantly my grandmother, or as we called her Nanna. She was my mother's mum. A typical East London woman. Called a spade a spade and didn't suffer fools. Having said that, she had a brilliant sense of humour and did beyond her best to look after me. She was very set in her ways, and ran her house and my time with her I imagine as if it were a boarding school.  I say imagine, as I have never attended a boarding school. But, up by 7am, downstairs for breakfast by 10 past. I would emerge into her tiny living room bleary-eyed, rubbing sleep from my eyes, hair like I'd had an argument with a blender! She would be in the kitchen lighting the grill with one of her cooks matches. Even now, at the age of 45, whenever I smell a freshly lit match, I am back in that living room, bleary-eyed!
So there I was, living for the foreseeable future in Plaistow East London. 
This was the first time in my life that I had seen anyone wash and scrub their front step! This baffled me at the time. Why expend the energy on something that was only going to get dirty again so quickly? But since starting my ascent on the rocky craggy mountain face of adulthood, and subsequently finding the ledge out of the driving rain and constant winds, I now understand the care and attention given to one's home.
So there I was. Not knowing if or when I would see my brother again, nor whether it would be at his funeral, or at the hospital.
 

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