The Coal Hole

The coal hole was the dark closet under the stairs of my childhood home in Crumlin. I would crawl in between the winter coats to sit down beside the hoover, staying still in the close darkness for hours with only the sound of my own breathing for company. 

There was no longer any coal there - there may never have been any - but there was certainly a faint yet sharp odour of gas from the metre. But mostly it smelled of my Dad's old coats, a comforting smell, the smell of him, of home. The ancient crombie overcoat which, though well-worn through many years, he still considered to be his best coat. A view most emphatically not shared by my mother. Various anoraks which he'd forgotten he had. And most impressively to my young eyes, his brown leather motorbike jacket, thick and heavy, and with it his old helmet and goggles.

My Dad's old motorbike had long gone by this stage. It wasn't very practical as transportation for a family of four. After a decade standing unused and forlorn in the garden, green, grimy, and rusting, he sold the old Sunbeam S7 to a passing dealer who restored it to the point that we saw it on display with other vintage motorbikes in the St. Patrick's Day parade. But my Dad always and forever considered himself a biker, as evidenced by his ownership of that jacket, even if he no longer possessed a bike. 

In my teen years I was often annoyed at Dad, for lots of trivial teenage reasons. Later, when I got over myself and wanted to talk to him, my Dad proved difficult to connect with. He adopted a persona for each situation, and with me he was always the parent. It was hard to get through to the real him, whoever that was, and I never really succeeded.

I've heard it said that it's in the effort to not be like our parents that we become most like them. As a teenager I resolved that I would be a biker, that I'd have the coolest and most uncompromising sports motorcycle, and that's exactly how it worked out. I had several bikes, each as red and deafening as a fire-engine and just as alarming to my wife. And of course, I had matching one-piece leathers and helmet. But the truth is, my bikes weren't very practical as transportation for a family of five. Eventually my Honda VFR750F stood covered in the shed for a decade before I finally sold it - and then only because the shed was being rebuilt and I had nowhere to store it. For I still considered myself a biker, and the bike represented that. Now it's gone. But I still have the red leathers and helmet, stored carefully in the space we call the cedar closet, a space I've seen my youngest son snuggle into on top of the bags of duvets and pillows.

What do we leave behind us when we die? Memories in the minds of those who knew us, a few material things we possessed that invoke those memories. Mannerisms and phrases, maybe even a predisposition to certain choices that we unwittingly pass on to our children. Things that we ourselves inherited.

I wonder what my children will remember of me.