August 2nd 1979 a date that is permanently etched into my mind. This was the day that I heard those words that no child of any age, man or boy, is ever ready to hear. Words that would take me the best part of 10 years to come to terms with. Words that echo in my mind even as I write this column.
I have some bad news, your Dad is Dead.
As I type those words I feel those emotions coming back. This is going to be harder to write than I thought. In that moment my whole world fell apart. How could he be dead? I was so certain he was indestructable, and yet he was gone. My Father had been both a Mother and a Father to me for over half my life, he was my guide, my mentor, my best friend and my hero. How could I live the rest of my life without ever seeing him again? In that moment I wished I was dead too.
All sons idolise their Father, I'd like to share with you the reasons I idolised mine, he truly was a special man. This has nothing to do with flight sims but may give you an insight to how I became the person that I am today.
My Father Ronald Charles Bush was a fairly normal guy. A builder by day and a very talented Magician by night. He was a member of the Magic Circle, International Brotherhood of Magicians, and London Society of Magicians. He used the stage name Ross Chandaue (Chandaue came off a perfume bottle and Ross was considered more American). Life was going pretty well, he had a good job, a happy family, and was well respected by his fellow Magicians. In 1969 all that changed when he fell off of the roof of a building he was working on. He hit the scaffolding and broke his back during the fall. The one consolation being that the scaffolding broke his fall as well as his back otherwise he would have certainly been killed.
It was here that his inner strength (and stubborness) started to show through. At the hospital he was told that the injury to his back was too severe and that he would never walk again. This was something that he refused to believe and his response was "I am not spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair, I will walk out of this hospital". They implored him to accept this so that he could come to terms with it and start adjusting to life in a wheelchair. He refused. This was a tough period for the family as my Father was an immensly proud man and would accept no help from the state during the many months that he spent in hospital. In those days things like compensation for accidents at work were rare indeed and pitifully inadequate if you did get anything. It was very tough on my Mother struggling to bring up 3 lively boys aged 6,7 and 8 on her own. Particularly with the prospect of my Father coming home in a wheelchair, needing to be looked after, and unable to earn a living.
True to his word my Falther walked out of the hospital. He needed 2 walking sticks and could not manage more than a few steps, but he was walking. He had always been a fighter, he was a Champion boxer in the army, and this was one fight he was not willing to lose. Over the next 2 years he worked hard in order to be able to walk without the sticks. He also worked hard to hone his skills as a magician. He would be unable to do physical labour and so his ability as a performer would be his best option to support his family. During this period his eyesight was gradually getting worse. Over the years he had had periods where his eyes would get worse for a while and then the deterioration would stop, only to start again several years later. Now they had got to the point where he could barely see. I would have to stand on a chair under the light holding a mirror inches away from his face for him to shave in the mornings.
For several weeks I noticed my Father pacing around the house backwards and forwards often. He would walk from the sofa to the coffee table and back a few times, then to the TV and back. He walked around every part of the house and in every room. Then one day I was walking to the shops and tried talking to him. I noticed that he seemed pre-occupied and then I realised that he was counting his steps. He counted his steps to the kerb, from one side of the road to the other, to the shops and so on. What I did not realise at the time was that he knew that his eyesight would likely soon be completely gone and was learning to find his way around his surroundings without his eyes. Out of the front door turn left, 8 paces turn left, down 7 stairs, turn right, 9 paces turn right 87 paces, stop, listen for traffic, down the kerb 6 paces up the kerb etc.
I still remember the precise moment that my Father went blind. We were eating our Sunday dinner when suddenly he dropped his knife and fork and started to walk away from the table. "What's wrong dad?" asked my older Brother, "I can't see." was my Fathers reply. With that he went to his bedroom and stayed there for 3 days. Fate can be very cruel and it seemed that fate had decided that he was going to be disabled. He had fought to regain the use of his legs and now his eyes had been taken from him instead. I always felt that to be far worse than losing the use of his legs. To never see your children grow up even though they are with you is unimaginable to me. His only memory of us was as young children, and sometimes this showed even when we were older. I think it was hard for him to see us as teenagers because when he saw our faces he saw bright eyed children. This was often reflected in our birthday and Christmas presents.
Things were about to get worse, his complete loss of eyesight was investigated and found to be irreversible. The reason for his loss of eyesight was also discovered, he had Multiple Sclerosis. In those days the policy with MS was to not tell the patient. MS is incurable, at that time very little was known about it. What they did know was that it would attack, which would cause damage to the myelin sheath causing anything from loss of motor function, to blindness and deafness, ultimately even death. But usually it would attack, then go into remission, then later it may or may not attack again. They figured why tell the patient when it may not come back and it is untreatable anyway. You may be worrying the patient unnecesarily and all that worrying wouldn't change anything. Instead they told my Mother and passed the decision as to whether to tell him and the job of doing so to her. This was simply too much for her and so she went to the shops one day and just kept going. The next time I saw her was 8 years later after my Father died.
Please don't judge my Mother at this point, I don't and no one else has a right to (other than my brothers who feel the same as I do). What you have to understand was that she didn't make a decision to walk out but rather just couldn't face coming home. The Dr's had given her a burden that she just couldn't carry. The previous years had been very hard on her, coping with 3 kids and no money while my Father had been in hospital. Then just as there was a light at the end of the tunnel her hope had been cruelly taken away and she had also been given the news of the MS, that in itself was already too much, and the responsibility of telling him or keeping it a secret just tipped her over the edge. To this day the guilt of that moment still weighs heavily on her which is really sad because myself and my brothers forgave her a long long time ago.
My Father raised the 3 of us alone. His incredible inner strength shone through many times over the years. His eyesight was gone for ever, that was something he could not change, this fight was going to be a lot harder than his fight to walk. Although he could not regain his eyesight he could fight against the effects. Everyone thought that his time as a magician was over. Not so, he was not going to let his lack of eyesight get in the way. He shocked everyone by becoming a better magician depite being unable to see. He went on to bacome an AIMC (Associate of the Inner Magic Circle) this is the highest accolade you can acheive in the Magic Circle through skill. They did not take his condition into account because this was for the Elite Inner Circle and so could only be acheived through merit. He also continued to perform and performed (and gave lectures) for other Magicians. Despite all the obstacles that had been put in front of him he was able to triumph. This was one of the most valuable examples I have ever been given in life. Someone once said to my Father "It must be very hard being blind", my Fathers response was "I can't see, but I refuse to be blind". That is something I will never forget and that really sums him up. It does not matter what shit life throws at you, you are in control of your destiny. It isn't what happens that decides our fate, it is how we choose to deal with it that decides our fate.
On top of the MS he had coronary thrombosis and epilepsy, this made it incredibly difficult for him to bring up 3 kids alone, yet he made it seem easy. He raised us with good manners and a firm set of principles and taught us the importance of personal integrity. He also taught us strength and dignity by his own examples. He had so little to smile about and yet all my memories are of him smiling and laughing. I never once heard him complain about his lot yet he would have been justified in having a little gripe occasionally. That was not in his nature, those were the cards he was dealt and he just picked them up and played them the best he could. This was another very valuable example he gave me. I could continue to give examples of his strength, courage and spirit untill this article is as large as the site but I'm writing this through tears.
The most powerful example of his strength and character is the most difficult to write about because even 22 years on the emotions are as powerful as they were back then. Boxing Day (26th of December in case that day has a different name elsewhere) 2 years before he died he was sweating profusely and looked in pain, this was worrying as he was not one to show any sign of pain and he'd had a couple of heart attacks some time prior to this. We asked him what was wrong and his response was that he just had a bit of a temperature. After we went to bed we could hear sounds of an argument. We crept out of our room and listened in (something we often did when voices were raised). What we heard will stay with me to my dying day. We heard the following exchange between him and his Fiance Angie (my Father got a divorce several years after my Mother left on the grounds of abandonment).
Angie: You had a heart attack today didn't you Ross Dad: Keep your voice down the kids are still awake Angie: Didn't you!! Dad: Yes Angie: You should have said something we should have called an Ambulance Dad: What kind of Christmas would it be for those kids if they knew their Father was having a heart attack Angie: What kind of Christmas would it be if their Father dropped dead in front of them Dad: I won't die, not until Ross is 18, then I've done my job.
Two years later my Father agreed to go into hospital to have open heart surgery. He had needed it for over a year but had refused up until this point as it would have meant us being put into a Childrens home. By this time he had had 47 heart attacks, one of which brought on an epileptic fit which was the only thing that allowed them to get him in hospital, where he was finally told about the MS (which almost brought on another heart attack when he found out how long they'd known without him being told). We had become very practised at listening into his conversations with Angie. The night before he went into hospital we overheard the following.
Dad: You know I'm not coming out of that hospital, promise me you'll look after those kids for me Angie: Don't be sillt Ross, lots of people have had this operation. You will be fine. Dad: They didn't have what I've got, anyway, you know when your time is up and mine was up 2 years ago, I've just been hanging on for those kids. Ross is 18 now, I've done my job.
Before leaving for the hospital he hugged me and said "Goodbye son" that was the first time I ever heard him say the word goodbye and the last time I ever saw him. That night he was joking about being in bed number 13 in the hospital, the next day he was dead.
As I intimated in the opening of this column it took me nearly 10 years to come to terms with it and under unexpected circumstances. I was very depressed over the death of my Father for many years and chose many ways to escape the pain including drink and drugs. Due to my lifestyle, and a few circumstances outside of my control I became homeless and ended up living on the street. This wasn't too bad in the summer but winter was real hard, especially in the snow. The pain of prolonged hunger and cold is hard to describe (and fortunately hard to recall). The monotony and boredom on top is soul destroying. One day I was sitting in Covent Garden as I had done virtually everyday for the last year or so and I thought to myself "Is this it? Is this the rest of my life?" This was my lowest point, and in that moment I decided to end it. I walked down to the tube station with every intention of stepping off the platform as the next train was approaching. As I waited at the edge of the platform for the impliment of my destruction to arrive it dawned on me that I would soon be with my Father again. At first I looked forward to that moment and saw our meeting again in my imagination. His reaction started to occur to me. He wasn't going to be pleased to see me, in fact he'd likely knock me from one end of the afterlife to the other. After all he had gone through to bring us up and keep us safe he would not thank me for throwing that away. Then I thought of all the shit that life had thrown at him that he had dealt with without a single complaint, and here was me giving in over something that could be changed. I was no longer depressed, suddenly I was ashamed. Then I remember that lesson I had learnt from his example.
It does not matter what shit life throws at you, you are in control of your destiny. It isn't what happens that decides our fate, it is how we choose to deal with it that decides our fate.
At this point I came to the following conclusions. This must change. I must change it. I can change it. At the same time I realised something that completely changed my life. I was not unlucky to have lost my Father, I was so lucky to have had him for 15 years. Understanding that totally changed my outlook on life. I was still sad that he was gone but was now able to cherish my memories of him with happiness instead sadness. The road back into society and a normal life was a tough one, getting off the streets and the drugs took the best part of a year, and it took several years to become fully integrated back into society. But it was a battle I was able to win because of the example set by a truly great man. My Father.
Dearest Father, I love and miss you so much. You taught me so much and I was never able to thank you. I wish my wife and children could have met you, I know they would have loved you like I do and you would love them. If only you had lived to see grow into the man I have become. I know you would have been so happy when I joined the Magic Circle and I missed you so much on that day. I hope that you would be as proud of me as I am of you.
Until we meet again. All my love Your son Mark Chandaue
Wow! Sorry, I don't know what to say other than that after reading your article I have nothing but the utmost respect for your father. I am very sorry for your loss.
You have my deepest respect (for the way you have handled things)and my sincere sympathy for the pain and sorrow you have been through.
Dave Stanley (Zappa)
Truly a powerful piece. I know from personal experiece just how hard that was to put into words...
When we first met last year, I didn't know what to expect. A guy from the other side of the planet, who dresses funny, ALMOST speaks the same language, and the only thing we have in common is our love of flight simulations... Debie and the kids were just as curious as I. Now, hardly a day goes by without one of them asking me about that guy named Mark.
I soon found that I was in the presence of someone who had seen life "up close and personal"; like very, very few of us have. This man was full of insight (both of the pain and pleasure variety), talent, skill, and conversation...but most of all, I noticed he was full of humor and good will. My initial reaction to this finding was: "How could a man that has had this much shit thrown at him, still get up every morning with a smile on his face, and joy in his heart?" As we spent time together, the answer became crystal clear...
We've all heard the saying, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree"... in this case it's very true.
I too, never met that incredible person you just shared with us. But in some ways I have; for you sir, are your father's son in it's truest form.
Know that he's with you, he loves you, and he's VERY proud of the man that you've become.
Ah I can not expers myself clear enough in english at that level, but: Some is living - some have taken up living by willing (thosing to do so despite all the pain) - those is the real masters course they are free -see?
With respect
fox44
Craig Wylie [unregristered]
post: #7
Email: wcraig@tm.net.my
Posted: 2/8 at 12:01
IP: 202.188.246.191
This is truely a very hard thing to put into words but you have done a wonderful job of it.
The respect and love for your father shines thru all and I know how it is to wish your parent could meet the family you have. How they would love your wife and children as much as you do.
You have my utmost respect and wishes on this very important day.
Thanks for your very kind words and thoughts. They really helped me today.
BBall,
You bastard :) Your words made me cry, not good when I'm sitting in my office with the blinds open and a full call centre full of tech guys looking at me through the window :)
Your post really meant a lot to me. I too didn't know what to expect on meeting you. During the time I spent with you I saw so much of my Father in you. Our Fathers were very much alike from what you have told me, and yours is very visible in you.
I have few heroes but you are one of them, you have that same charisma that my Father had and I could see that same inner strength in you that was so evident in my Father. I think the two of you would have been good friends had he ever met you. Mind you I think anyone that has met you has been enriched by it.
I only hope that I can become half the Father to my children that you are to yours. That was the thing that I most admired about you from the time that I spent with you. They are truly lucky to have a Father of the same calibre that we both had.
You demonstrated that inner strength in the way that you handled your cancer. You showed the same dignity that my Father showed with his illness. The thing that you said more often than anything during that period was "I am the luckiest man on the planet, I have so many wonderful friends". I never once heard you express any concern for yourself during that time, only for Debbie, the children and your friends. You never lost your sense of humour, even saying "Table for one please" as they wheeled you into the operating theatre. Your response to losing your hair from the treatment "Women find Yul Brinner sexy, right?".
You sir are every bit the man that my Father was and I am richer for having met you.
Your friend,
Frugal
TweetPuke [unregristered]
post: #9
Email: pk100@home.com
Posted: 2/8 at 23:58
IP: 65.2.231.69
Thanks for the inspiration Frugal. I'm approaching my fifth anniversary in recovery. I have to say that the single most important thing I've learned in that time is: It doesn't matter what happens in life. It only matter how you handle it. Said slightly different than your bold type but no less true. My spirit is always uplifted when I hear of this little truth about life working in others. Your gratitude can't fail to carry you and your family through whatever life may hold.
Thank you for sharing with us.
Reg
Scamp [unregristered]
post: #10
Email: Mscampi@aol.com
Posted: 3/8 at 0:34
IP: 198.81.16.183
Mark , I have now doubt your father is very proud of you.
Its a rough road youve traveled, and for some of us, it takes that hitting bottom before we can really appriciate what we have, and
have had.
This may sound out there but,
I believe that your writing (and posting ) this article is in part the result of your father speaking through you, because he knows your pain,
and wishes to be there. he is telling you so through our replys.
He is indeed very proud of you.
First of all I must say that I feel a bit ashamed to be writing this on the 3rd...
Frug, what I just read about your father makes me completely understand what you have been trying to tell me each time I've spoken to you about my personal problems... Even if its annoying at the time (you know this bro! ;) ), you are right with every word.
People like your father is what makes the backbone of humanity... And now I understand where you get all your "mojo" from.
I just hope with all my heart that someday I will be able to spontaneously (sp?) think and act like you, and apparently your father...
Actually, thanks much for the accolades, I feel the same in reverse. Yes, you and I were lucky to have had two amazing examples of how a Man should lead his life. They taught by example (probably my biggest standard as a parent), and by doing that, set the bar pretty high for those that followed. It's a struggle each day, but as we "fight the good fight", we have but to think of them, and it somehow becomes a bit easier. If I had a dollar (or quid in your case) for everytime I mused, "now how would the old man have handled this...?", I'd make Bill Gates look like a pauper.
Thaks again for allowing us to peek into your soul and meet your father....we've all been enriched by it.
That is a very moving read my friend. Like I said when you let me read it the other day, I can now understand how you turned out to be the honorable and sincere man that you are.
I can also see by the wonderful feedback here from our readers just what a great impact you have on the community. I am very proud be call you my friend.......
I can only imagine how proud your father would be of you.
Geeze! I log onto this website on so many occasions only to wind up with tear filled eyes. Frugal, BBall, Chunx with all your moving stories. "...in fact he'd likely knock me from one end of the afterlife to the other." Mark, that's one of the funniest lines I've read in a long time. It's right up there with Chunx saying he wanted to "scream" when he saw the position the control surfaces were in. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, I mean that both statements were funny yet conveyed a reality, a truth of sorts, well for me anyway. My dad died last June at the age of 89. He wasn't a helicopter pilot or magician but he was a wonderfully quiet man. Sounds like we all shared the experience of having good dads who left their marks on us in their own distinctive ways.
What a nice website this is, that goes so far beyond wondering when the next F4 addon is coming but crosses the borders of our humanity. I've actually been enriched by coming here and discovering that I'm not a wimp for getting a lump in my throat when I see an F-14 streak by at an airshow, or for taking a moment to read about someone else's dad's experiences in Vietnam or to be a kid again staring into the sky as the Skyraider's from Lemore NAS dogfight over my house and feel the emotions of a little boy as a Navy pilot waves to him. Wonderful memories and nice people to share them with.
Hi Frug
We have not met yet but I am sure we will after speaking with Coda last week, I happened to be browsing your site and came to this page WOW I thought I was alone with the feelings I had for my Father, he died in January 2000 so managed to see in the new millenium. He too was a great man with certain beliefs and a very good nature, he was a prison officer but an unusual one in he still until the day he died got Xmas cards from past prisoners whom he came in contact with over the years.
I have started a project in his memory of restoring a motorbike he had in bits for 30 odd years ;-) you can see the project if you have a desire to at http://www.rollingthunder.org.uk/speedtwin It looks like there are a lot of people that have had real Father figures to look up to and set standards by, and your piece here has lifted my spirits, I am sure your Father was a special man and I hope your life turns out as happy as he would have wished for you...
What can I possibly say. You have once more made me feel tremendously privileged to have had an opportunity to join this marvelous community.
I am, as ever, humbled by the humanity and bravery of some of the members of this board, particularly yourself and Bball - your dignity and courage are truly inspiring.
Should I ever be fortunate enough to meet you guys, don't be surprised if I fall to my knees shouting "We're not worthy!" ;)
Seriously though, thanks for letting us all in to your very personal feelings, and giving me a lump in my throat!
What can I possibly say. You have once more made me feel tremendously privileged to have had an opportunity to join this marvelous community.
I am, as ever, humbled by the humanity and bravery of some of the members of this board, particularly yourself and Bball - your dignity and courage are truly inspiring.
Should I ever be fortunate enough to meet you guys, don't be surprised if I fall to my knees shouting "We're not worthy!" ;)
Seriously though, thanks for letting us all in to your very personal feelings, and giving me a lump in my throat!
Dear Frug:
What a remarkable testimony of the love between father and son.
It's very rare for someone to share their personal feelings in this way and that makes it all the more special. Personally, I think it serves as a reminder to all that we should all stop our "bellyaching" and get on with the real business of life: to love and serve others with every fibre of our being.
Mike Orsini
Mery [unregristered]
post: #21
Email: dddd4@mail.com
Posted: 18/8 at 16:50
IP: 207.230.66.10
