My father accepted the likelihood that he was dying although for the present at least this would prove to be incorrect. In the long run it was a belief that would always prove correct.
From a lifetime of working with engines and lathes the fiercely self sufficient man, could see that every mechanism would one day be clapped out and that this was now happening to him.
It was inevitable considering his Irish background that persisted though the generations in the diaspora, where his forbears were remembered proudly for their roles in revolutionary cornerstones in history, that I would have a Catholic education.
rules boyhood rules would be impossible to keep designed to be inadequate, I was insufficient to keep, then the scriptures of attendance at mass on Sunday when the priests collection was passed round. My father at mass would give up his seat too easily and would be more interested in the red lowries shots fraternising crisply. At the foyer.
There were rules about attending mass weekly which were painstaking pedantic, where if a person did not follow these rules he would go to hell a place of fire and torture as opposed to dreams come true in a clearly harsh division. Could be a measurement and argument whether foot being outside the building, technical quibble, foyer, steps, full he would look at the parrots red flash matched the callistemon brushes.
In my childhood terrors of boy waking to the belief, failed every way on all the rules, this was the least of them, a clear run, had left behind so was gone by the time his death we were on a par, or the long predictions of his death, that he so liked to refer to at end of the day on the shed.
For the sporting minded, the tumour he carried on this day, you could boot around, he was so close to money, yet miraculously, would live another nineteen years. When the time came, he let it be known he would like the full regalia, incense, high costume, and yes a full requiem mass, and promised he would attend, which he duly did, just on the off chance the bastards were right.