BY ROBERT CATTO
“In the city where I was born, the past carries the present like a child on its shoulders.”
My last essay, from February, seems like a postcard from a bygone age. Me, at home; a life in the arts; what different meanings those have now. The world has changed, for me especially.
Two days after posting that essay, my father died; by the following week I was in Canada with my family, putting him to rest on a windswept hill, as snow fell around us.
There’s no simple way to sum up a lifetime’s worth of influence he had on me - but at a simple level, he gave me my first real camera. When I left for university, he gave me his Canon FTb (on which our entire childhoods had been recorded, on slide film) with a group of prime lenses - it was older than I was, but still working perfectly. He always looked after things; they might be useful again, one day.
If that hadn’t happened, if he hadn’t offered me his old kit, it’s hard to imagine how my life - and my career - might have turned out.
Walking around familiar Toronto streets, staying with old friends from school, visiting places I used to go, reminded me of the life I lived there, once upon a time. The crunch of fresh snow underfoot was something I hadn’t felt for 20 years or more; but of course, it was so familiar.
It felt like meeting my past, and suddenly it was also my present, again. But, with a piece missing, right at the centre.
People say many things about losing a parent; how it disorients you, how grief comes at unexpected times. I found the small, private moments hit me the hardest.
I hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to ride the subway past the cemetery, looking out at the hill where he’s buried, in the days following the funeral.
Or trying on his ring, that had belonged to his father, and finding out we all shared the same hands.
And now, a month after getting back to Australia, I’m still surrounded by reminders of him - not least of which is a pocket watch that ticks away on my desk, now.
When I first picked it up in my Mum’s apartment, it immediately started running in my hand. “It likes you,” she said, “you should have it.”
I opened the back - and found myself looking at my great-grandmother, Leila. Dad would have known the story of the watch, of his grandparents; so much of our family history was in his memories, stories told over dinner, that we now all recall different details from.
Our shared past is a present - a gift - from him. He carried it, all these years, for exactly this moment.
The moment where - like he once did - I try on my father’s ring; and find our history fits me, too.
