Letter to my father
()
About this ebook
In his own version of Kafka's Letter to Father, Bernard Marin reflects on fatherhood: his own experience as the son of a distant and angry father, and as a loving father himself. Recalling his father's gambling, his anger, his indifference, Bernard is surprised to discover happiness in the time he spent with his father at their nurs
Bernard Marin
Bernard Marin AM was born in 1950 and graduated from the Prahran College of Advanced Education in Melbourne in 1970. He established his accounting practice in 1981 and currently works with the staff and partners of the practice as a consultant. Bernard lives in Melbourne with his wife, Wendy.He has published the following books: My Father, My Father, Good as Gold, Stories of Profit and Loss, Stories and Remembering and Forgetting, Letter to my Father, We had a Dream and People Who Have Changed the World.
Read more from Bernard Marin
We Had a Dream: Eyewitnesses to the struggle for justice and equality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy father my father Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories of Profit and Loss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories of Remembering and Forgetting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBreakfast with Paul: Two Novellas, Two Survivors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeople Who Have Changed The World: Imagined Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Letter to my father
Related ebooks
Mid-Life Crisis MANagement: A Quiet Word: The Bloke's Guide to Surviving Middle Age and Male Menopause Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA-Bun-Dance 4 Your Finance: Growing Interest About Money Even If You Have Adhd Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Life of Meaning: Relocating Your Center of Spiritual Gravity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Peter Pan Syndrome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ripple Effect: The 7 Most Important Decisions of Each Day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings30 Days Of Heartbreak Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMake it to Midnight: Learning to Live when you want to Die Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Not? (Review and Analysis of Nalebuff and Ayres' Book) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Control Your Emotions: Practical Handbook for Understanding Your Trig-gers, Turn Off Negative Spirals and Regain your Balance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRadical Recovery: Transforming the Despair of Your Divorce into an Unexpected Good Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Path to Your Career Purpose: Find and Live the Life of Fulfilling Work You Were Meant to Do Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Therapy Files Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrief: The Universal Emotion of Loss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Hell of Mercy: A Meditation on Depression and the Dark Night of the Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Melody Beattie's The Language of Letting Go Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Identicals: by Elin Hilderbrand | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWuthering Heights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 5 AM Revolution: Unlocking Your Potential One Morning at a Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving with Someone with Bipolar Disorder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMandula Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMe Before You by Jojo Moyes- Top 50 Facts Countdown Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Behind the Halo: Exploring the Humanity of Jesus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSimple Compassion: Devotions to Make a Difference in Your Neighborhood and Your World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Franz Kafka: The Best Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of A Court of Thorns and Roses: by Sarah J. Maas - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnchained: A Journey to the Soul from Head to Heart Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life is What You Make It Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Simple Guide to Neurotic Personality (Neuroticism), Diagnosis, Treatment and Related Conditions Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5
Personal Memoirs For You
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Many Lives of Mama Love (Oprah's Book Club): A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman in Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Letter to my father
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Letter to my father - Bernard Marin
First published in 2020
by Harvard Publications
432 St Kilda Road
Melbourne 3004
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher.
Copyright © Bernard Marin 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
ISBN 978 0 6485553 3 9
Design by Skeleton Gamblers Creative
In memory of my father
Stanislaw Marin
Dear Dad
In the year I turned forty-eight I began to suffer from severe headaches. At the same age, you had suffered a heart attack and a stroke, and your father had died in Europe at the age of forty-eight.
My family doctor diagnosed migraines and referred me to a psychiatrist, who soon determined that I had never grieved for you. I was shocked. But then how do you mourn the loss of somebody you never really knew?
Today, twenty years later and thirty-three years after your death, I am sitting at my desk looking out the window and reflecting on our troubled relationship. Franz Kafka’s Letter to Father lies open before me, and I am suddenly prompted to write to you.
As hailstones strike the window and lightning flashes, I am reminded for some reason of the cigarette lighter I gave you as a present when I was sixteen or so. The metal lighter was enclosed in a fine network of filaments, like vines twisting around a tree. I had saved for months to buy it, all the money I’d earned from washing cars and doing other odd jobs.
‘It’s beautiful,’ you said.
‘I figured it’s something you could really use,’ I replied, gratified to have pleased you.
I looked forward to seeing you flicking off the lid to light up your endless Craven A cigarettes, feeling that I now had some small part in your life.
A few days later I was talking to my brother Paul when he took out a cigarette and held out the lighter to light one for me, too. I sat there, quite still, looking at the lighter. I could feel myself turning pale.
‘Where did you get that lighter?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I lost my other lighter, so Dad gave me this one,’ Paul said. ‘I guess he didn’t want it.’
‘He’s a bastard,’ I said.
Paul shrugged and lit his cigarette. ‘Don’t get so worked up,’ he said, blowing out a mouthful of smoke. ‘You’ll give yourself a seizure.’
Thinking about that lighter now, more than fifty years later, I feel the same stab of pain and anger towards you, with your callous silence, your emotional incapacity. It was just one of the