An Important Message from your Author about Fathers

I finished writing Severus Snape and the Art of War by the end of December 2019. For anyone who has read the story from front to finish, you'll know that the concept of death and how we deal with it is a large part of the story all the way up to the epilogue [249]. The other important part of the story is Father Figures. Severus's own father was a horrible example (or perhaps a great example of what not to do), and so I planted loads of different father figures throughout this story so he could learn about the complicated that is: What It Means to Be a Man.

My own father passed away in the night between the 29th and 30th of March 2020. He suffered a heart attack, which unfortunately is a genetic problem within the family. He was 58 years old. At that point, I had not seen my father in four years. The reason for that, which is something that I did not understand until I reached adulthood, is because him and I are too much alike. We are, as we say in Dutch; "binnenvetters." A binnenvetter is somebody who is not only an introvert, but also worries too much by not sharing the things that bother him with others and keeping most feelings to himself. We both dealt with the problem that we'd accumulate too many things that frustrate us inside of us until we could hold it no longer, and we'd explode. We've said a lot of mean things to each other and about each other over the years. Throughout my 27 years of life it happened quite frequently that I wouldn't see or speak to him for a longer period of time. We both avoided conflict whenever we could. In that sense, we were also too much alike.

My parents got divorced when I was about 2 years old. This fact doesn't bother me. It's rather normal for people to fall out of love and I was fortunate enough that my parents have always been on good terms after they split and continued to live in the same town. He remarried and because of that I now have two (much younger) half-brothers, whom I love and adore.
I think the best way to describe where things went wrong is that my dad had two arms and three children. He just couldn't carry all three of us and I know, now, that it cost him a lot of pain. Me already being older and living with my mum meant that he just couldn't always find the time or resources to help raise me. I was jealous of my brothers for having a full-time dad while I was lucky if I got to have him for myself once a week. As a teenager I did visit him once a week, and always on the day that he would have band practise so I could tag along. Those days were sacred to me.

I already started writing Art of War before we had our final falling out and continued after we did. I had subconsciously been writing about fathers because I had missed my own so much. He's there on every page. In ways that I wished that he had been. Things that he's taught me. In wisdom that he has shared with me (even without knowing it), and also in the harsh things. Even physically he's made his presence in the form of a bass guitar. The black Fender Precision with the mirror pickguard from the 70s that Severus has is my dad's actual bass guitar. He was a bass player in a metal band back in the 80s and he's played in a lot of rock and blues bands till his final day. In almost all pictures that I have of him, he's never seen without his bass. He wasn't good with words, but he was incredible with the music that he made. His love and talent for music was also passed on to me. Music is how we talked. Bass is what we play, like an invisible force trying to hold it all together.

His bass is now standing in my living room.

In his final moment it was my niece, who works as a surgeon at the hospital he was brought to, who contacted me and told me about everything that happened. Not having a car, it took a long time for me to get there. Once I made it to the IC, I got to hold his hand, which he squeezed into, and I got tell him that I love him and that I am doing just fine, which mattered to him deeply. It was then that his condition started to get worse. He had waited for me before he started slipping away. We were all with him when he died. My step mum, my brothers, my father's brother and my niece, who made it all possible for us to be there on the IC during these strange COVID-19 laws that are now in place.

Closure matters. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to say goodbye to someone you love on good terms. I hate how the last words that were exchanged between him and I were words of anger and resentment. What seemed like a big deal at the time has suddenly become small and insignificant. And I can tell you, reader, it is not worth holding on to bitterness. Living to an old age and dying peacefully in our sleep is not a given. It is a rare gift rarely handed out by mother nature.

...

It is not easy being a father. There are men like Tobias Snape, whose actions are that of an unforgivable nature, and yet also come with their own trivial backgrounds. Then there are also men like my father (and by extend, also Severus), who are trying to carry the weight of the world on their backs without anyone's knowledge to how heavy the burden weighs within their hearts – and sometimes fail in making it to the top of the mountain.

...

There is no shame in failure, nor should it. I was lucky enough to be there in his final hour, but this moment is not granted to everyone. Sometimes people we love are torn out of our lives before we can share a proper goodbye. It is therefore that I urge you, reader, to talk to your father (and your mother, and all your other loved ones) and tell them the things that you want them to know. Our parents are not superheroes. They make mistakes along the way without knowing how to make it right again. It is up to us to forgive them for their wrongdoings. Inevitably we, too, will make our own mistakes as we raise the generation after us.