There is a sense of freedom........

Six short months ago the idea came to me to walk and meditate along a path by the sea in Wales. Three months before that my father had died and I have reflected on this loss on my recent walks; remembering times past as a daughter, recalling  the man he was, the manner of his life and his death.

At his funeral my brother Andrew had spoken during the ceremony of what he felt was our father's legacy. Music was very important in our childhoods. Andrew plays the violin and teaches music because of this. Dad loved photography and I now have some of his huge collection of cameras. In the days, then weeks afterwards the idea of what dad has passed on to me felt hard to grasp. Grief is as complex as our relationship is with the parent that has been lost. So, on holiday in Wales, camping in our Eriba Caravan, walking many of the beautiful coastal paths, I had a chance to slow down and allow thoughts and memories to arise in a more relaxed and helpful way.

Dad was an enthusiastic man; this could be about all sorts of varied ideas and projects. Some of them came to more successful conclusions than others. He gained his Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society and we have a complete photographic record of our family life together. We climbed Snowden as children (only getting the train on the way down). We went cycle camping every weekend in the summer, and once cycled all the way from Newark to West Runton in Norfolk where we camped for two weeks. He wrote poetry and screen plays and tried for many years to get these published.

The most important legacy for me was that he introduced me to Buddhism. He would drive his motorbike to Nottingham from Newark to the group there, probably in the late 1960's, early 70's. He took me once, and someone in the group had just taken some sort of commitment to the order and was self-consciously wearing his robes (black, floor length and I am sure with a leather belt?). Dad talked about the basic premises of Buddhism and there were books in the house that I dipped in to - Zen Flesh, Zen Bones being the only one that I recall now. But the memory remained of meditation, of the sense that there was something worth exploring. This took me many years to follow up but here I am now, and very grateful I am too. Thanks dad.

Some of his less successful enthusiasms were the massive kite he built out of bamboo, wall paper and flour glue. He and I walked down the street with it to the local park were there was a bit of a hill. I would have been about 7 years old and it was nearly as tall as me. It didn't fly......

Another was when he wanted a boat to mess around in on the River Trent which we lived close by to. He had found one to renovate and took me to the neighbouring wood yard where it lay, with grass growing through the rotting holes in the hull. He was excited about how he might patch up these holes with, I kid you not, papiermâché!  Family members and those of you who met dad at the Nottingham group or on his visits to Throssel will perhaps remember his eccentricity.

The enthusiasms that really caught my imagination were the ones that involved travel. We were to walk the length of the Pennine Way, or take a bus through France and Switzerland to the Dolomites and walk in the mountains. He wanted me to become an Arctic explorer and I listened to the Vaughan Williams Antarctica Symphony a lot and worried about how I would pee outside in sub-zero temperatures.

After a while, through adolescence and into adulthood, I began to feel sad and irritated by these wild and somewhat impossible schemes. I guess this is what psychologists would call the process of separation a child makes from its parent. This separation does not always go smoothly and I offer sange now for any harm I caused by being dismissive or annoyed.

Dad was being treated for depression just before his death and I have the sense now that this was very much about him focussing on what he didn't manage to do rather than the many things he did (who of us doesn't think like this some of the time?). There was a sadness that seemed to stem from feelings of inadequacy, a searching for happiness from without rather than trusting that he had everything he needed already.

So dad, as I remember and think on what your legacy is to me, I approach this journey with a sense of freedom. It is both a special thing to do and it is somehow no big deal either. It is something that is, and was always possible. As a family we did walk parts of the Pennine Way and my love of the landscape and of being outdoors I give credit to you (and mum). And now, with my experience of meditation there is the great spiritual benefit I experience I am out on my walks. The walk in Pembroksehire and the steps I am taking towards it, keep showing me how I am released from both the human and the karmic bonds that exisited between us. There is a sense of freedom..........