How I Rescued My Brain by David Roland

become.

7
    OVER THE LAST year, ever since Dad’s death, I’d hankered for someone to look up to — a parent to listen to my miseries, give me an accepting hug, and tell me something wise. Dad wouldn’t have been able to do anything practical for me, but he could’ve provided these things. After his death, I realised what a vacuum there was; as the eldest of my siblings, I was now at the end of the family line.
    Being the executor of Dad’s will, I’d had to deal with his accountant, his solicitor, and my extended family. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs had also contacted me: they’d made Dad a payment before becoming aware of his death, and it needed to be refunded. I had to make sense of his pharmaceutical and nursing-home accounts. A final tax return was required; Dad continued to pay tax long after he was gone. I debated dollars and cents with clerks on the phone as if Dad were still alive. The people I dealt with were only doing their jobs, but each conversation, each occasion I went through his documents, re-ignited my sense of loss, and the ache in my chest would restart. Every time, it took several days for the veil of grief to part.
    As the first anniversary of his death approached, I got an anxious feeling, as if something awful was about to happen. I called my sister and spoke to her about it. She said she didn’t feel apprehensive and that it was okay. She was right, of course. Following the anniversary, the feeling eased, and I could finally stop thinking about him so intensely.
    When I had first stopped work, it meant that I could help out more with the children, relieve the domestic pressure on Anna, restore my health, visit Dad when he was ill, and look after his financial affairs. It also meant I had time to extend our property portfolio.
    I enjoyed dealing with numbers, and with property managers, builders, and tradesmen. With men in work shorts and boots, there was no need to step around sensitive feelings. And I liked talking about things I could see and touch, things that would last — a contrast to psychology, in which most of the people whose lives I’d helped I would never see again.
    At Dad’s funeral service, a cousin had presented me with an extensive family tree he had drawn; there was a line of builders going way back. Our earliest Australian male ancestor, originally a convict, had made good, building churches and hotels, and eventually becoming the mayor of Waverley, in Sydney. He even had a street named after him in Bondi. Dad had been handy at making things too.
    I’d always enjoyed looking at buildings, identifying their architectural periods and features. It was a passion that Anna and I shared. I’d renovated my first house on my own, before my marriage. Dad had shown me how to do the electrics and lent me his prized tools. So my cousin’s revelation of our architectural line had a neat symmetry about it.
    In 1993, one of Anna’s relatives had told me how he’d built his wealth through property investment, and how we could do this too. ‘You do your psychology thing, which is what you really want to do, and let your assets build up on the side. You’ll hardly have to think about them,’ he had said.
    Anna liked the idea of investing too. With her relative’s guidance, we nervously made our first property investment, and then bought our home. By 2002, with three young children, and conscious of the uncertainties of self-employment, I wanted to expand our portfolio. By now, I was more enthusiastic about devoting time to this than Anna; she was developing her business interests, post-babies.
    By 2007, with the escalating property market, we had become, on paper, wealthy. During the unfolding of this ridiculously easy path to success, I had happily mentioned to friends and family — trying not to be evangelical — that they could do it too. A few took up the challenge; most did not, and I felt