Tag: Family Life

Goodbye and Farewell

Chicago Stories, Father
My father
Picture taken of me, my daughter when she was tiny and my father, at my sister’s wedding .

 

Well, goodbye to 2018.

Goodbye to my father Christopher Martin Zakheim, who died on Christmas Day 2018.

Hello to a show that was life changing for me. Hello to a book I had dreamed of for twenty years.

A trip to the dentist in February gave me a rare mouth condition which troubles me daily BUT after endless research I discovered loads of vitamins that helped me and loads of others. I’ve tried to turn every difficult situation into a positive but sometimes life can be gruelling.

My father’s death was too dreadful from brain cancer but instead of dwelling on that, I’d like to celebrate what a character he was. He wasn’t normal or conventional- ever. He was charming and only walked his own path. He never complained and certainly never explained! Ever! I hope I can be that brave. He used to rock up to my boarding school in a shirt unbuttoned to the waist (1970s!) and skin tight jeans. No other father looked like him. The matrons would be staring out of the window to witness his approach, which even then I knew was funny, if slightly embarrassing- for them! He paid my school fees with cash that he had tucked down his sock- he was a true antiques dealer of the old school kind.

Once he got over his 1970s look, he grew into one of the best dressed men I ever met and one of the few men who could actually were velvet and look slick. Brocade waistcoats, perfect cufflinks, brogues – these were the mainstays of his wardrobe. He always loved a character and attracted them wherever we went, especially in his Russian Art Gallery in London’s West End. He would have loved my show as it was packed with extraordinary people.

He was a bit of a rockstar – a mischief maker and a maverick. He got things wrong as he had me at 23, so he was really just a boy, but by his third marriage he had started to work out this thing we call life. I called him at least three times a week to waffle on and on and on (and I can really talk) and he never minded. He loathed FaceTime and would listen but direct the camera to the cat. He said the wrong thing quite often (!) but it could be very funny.

I don’t think that for the rest of my life on planet Earth I will ever meet anyone like him.

Goodbye 2018. No more words about you. Let’s see what 2019 brings.