My biological father Andrew Edmondson passed on May the 8th 2007 at the age of 35. In the four days after this event, his flat was robbed by his friend.
I never knew him, but simultaneously I feel like a vessel and vehicle for his presence and personality. Often, I feel (revolving around the circumstances of my birth) as a objectification of chaos, I feel that I was not only birthed by an individual but additionally birthed socially by the situation that revolved around me and my family, the dysfunction, the terror, the depressive drowsiness. Often, I feel a sense of self objectification for this, but also an element of imposed objectification, when my fathers family see me, photos, videos, do they think of me as the child of my father? Or as an individual who’s father happened to be Andrew. How much of that event is sewn into the presence of my being?
My father started taking drugs when he was 13. As a result of what I have been told was a highly dysfunctional family dynamic. I don’t know much about this time, only that he was creative, articulate and passionate in his personal beliefs. I don’t even know why I’m typing this at all but seemingly during lockdown I’ve been thinking about myself since I have nothing else to think about, this isn’t even a good mini-essay, whatever.
Back to drugs, I don’t know what he took through his life but I do know he took heroin specifically, I was born 4 months premature, weighed 3Ibs and was born chemically addicted to heroin, in which I had to be weaned from. This was caused by a culmination of complex situational possibilities, in which I blame no one, shame very strongly and starkly blanketed the life of my mother in relation to me. When I finally came into contact with her, her first relief is that I didn't vehemently hate her. Which made me cry.
The first time I saw my fathers face was a photo supplied to me in a package of photos made available to me during the revealing of my adoption. I didn’t think he looked like me, although he too wore glasses and had quite strong cheekbones. I have his eyes, a green blue colour, although in the photo there was a sheen on drowsiness.
The second photo I saw of my father was a family portrait sent to me by an aunt, the same aunt who spoke to the BBC in reference to my fathers death, which was aired on a daytime tv program in Helicopter Heroes, a daytime documentary focussed on the intense daily situations of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service. I haven’t seen the episode my father, or his wrecked BMW appears in, I do not wish to see it. In this second photo, he is surrounded by members of his family, one of them has a mullet and is drinking a can of beer, one of them is holding a airsoft gun in a casual stance, my father is seated in a shy visage cradling a small kitten. I cried.
His sensitivity was apparent in this image, it permeated a naivety, a reclusiveness and a tenderness. There are qualities I myself identify with, so quite often that's where the identity crisis lies, am I my father in personality because I am his biological son? Or am I like him because I’ve discovered who he was?
I don’t know. I love him.
My biological father Andrew Edmondson passed on May the 8th 2007 at the age of 35. In the four days after this event, his flat was robbed by his friend.
