Does the Buck stop here ??

Not to know your father, I never knew what that was like. I had a happy childhood, although my dad raised me with an iron hand it was wrapped in a velvet glove. Lucky me to have a no-nonsense dad. He died of emphysema when I was 19. It was a heart attack due to heart failure, a complication of copd. The doctors did not understand the correlation between heart and lungs as much as they do today, though, not enough today either. I grant you. I grant you this quickly. I sense your hackles rising.

I shut my eyes and I can still see my father coming in from the washing line on a frosty morning when his boiler suit had frozen on the line so it looked like it was a blue uniform worn by an invisible man, and him laughing, and chasing us around with it. i can still smell the diesel as it thawed from the ice. Jeeso. I did not have a clue that I was happy. Just give me a tardis for one hour, just one hour, to go back there and tell them, thanks, that they were brilliant, really okay.

When I hear of people talk about how much they were damaged by their parents, or people who did not know their parents, I am staggered to realise that I was one of the lucky spuds. They peep me off when they were alive though. What a diddy I was.

COPD is horrible. My father never smoked. But he got it. Died at age 46. God knows what he went through to keep us comfortable, cycled every day on his raleigh bike 7 miles to work as a boilerman at an airport. I took all the coughing he made at night as normal. I was a vainglorious child, i was thrilled with derring do reading commando comics and heroic stories of soldiery. I had no idea what a real hero was.

So, although I feel glad to have known my parents, sometimes I wish that I hadn't, paradoxical though that sounds. I wouldn't have the painful, bittersweet interventions of nostalgia that make me sad, because people who loved me are now so irretrievable.

Hey ho though.

I guess what I would do in your case would be to invent an image of what my father would have been like and how things would have been better had I known him. Life is so bewildering. I'm only now just getting it.

I never got Marx, ain't religious, the only philosphy in life I can come up with is to;

Be as kind and as strong as you can be.

BTW it is pissing down here.

Phew

I think a lot of the way we go on with other people, whether a people pleaser, a hugger, or an isolate is indeed tempting to put down to our conditioning.

i don't know though.

maybe you would still be a person who gave of themself if you had two attentive loving parents as your formative experience. Of course you'll never know. But I think a lot of it is down to genetic wiring with our own sense of self emerging, establishing itself. Our parents provide a backdrop to us of course, those that were not absent for any reason, they were our shelter, rain proof or leaky depending on whether they were diddies or not. But, the older I get I tend to think the innate person will gradually emerge from its shell, despite what life throws at it.

I am a communicator for example, my sister was like one of those austere portraits by Whistler, joyless really, and my brother was just doolally. We had the same parents, three different people though.

So the idea that who we turned out to be is down to what our environment has put into us, well, the jury's out.

At some point we've got to take the responsibilty of navigating the world in the skin that feels most comfortable. Time passes and as we distance ourselves from our parents I think their influence wanes, while still of course being part of us. But less importantly for how our character emerges., I suspect,

Ah vague philosphy I'll never be bright enough to elucidate what I mean. Though I am pretty bright, just lack true clarity of analysis. So I have to settle to be glad I'm still kicking.

Even though it's peeing outside the window. Summer rain is gorgeous. There is a fuchia plant outside the window shaking in the rain, and the perfume as each wet blob strikes the nervy flower is life affirming .

BTW I think you are on a hair trigger regarding anything positive about doctors, or i thought you were, but you say you have written letters to those that treated you well.

Don't quite get why you don't steam into those that didn't treat you well. But that sounds somehow old, now. Now I kind of get you.

The bouquet of summer is on my senses and it is good to feel alive, the dramatic backdrop of the rain storm just enhances this.

n'night.

1) identify the culprit

2) accumulate evidence of deliberate obstruction

3) present it to whomsoever is encharged to deal with the problem

4) insist on being part of the feedback loop while the process of complaint is ongoing.

5) when all else fails, go to either the european or local or otherwise appropriate court or tribunal.

That's about all I can think of. I'd definately get the ball rolling though.

The stystem has taken care of the nasty snash from yash.

So sometimes Guardian's stytems and processes do work.

Can't see what you are meaning by frightening you with my most recent post.

i thought I was answering the buck question. About your lack of proper care/obfuscation and obstruction by the medical people regarding your hospital visits.

That's why I wrote identify the culprit first. then work your way through the problem.

Okay doaky. Haud' the bus. Start again.

clarify

Who should own the problem regarding your bad experience with the hospital people - that's what I think you are asking about the buck question.

That is what I was trying to answer.

.... Just to be clear.

eh

What do you mean by buck. What buck. What's your main beef.

I'm confusd but then, I'm easily that.

I'm probably hindering Jacqueline rather than helping you get the answer to your question.

I'm stymied. Annoyed with myself a bit for not thinking clearer.

Good luck to you.

all the best.

Got to say adious. I've enjoyed our chat though.

best wishes Pete.