Dad

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."
--- Kahlil Gibran


My dad died last week after a short illness. Despite his 87 years it was unexpected. He developed a very aggressive bone marrow cancer and was sick for only just over a week. Glen and I had come up the weekend before and visited him in hospital along with my sister Yvonne, my niece Alison and my mother. He was breathless but otherwise pretty good. There were lots of tears as it was becoming obvious that he was not going to recover and he was deteriorating very quickly. Dad was lucid and talkative. Normally he is pretty quiet. He had a wonderfully dry sense of humour and he was still being funny. Monday Paula arrived from the US and after picking her up from the airport we headed back up to the hospital in Newcastle and visited dad. He was very talkative, mostly worried about leaving mum on her own as he was aware at this point that he was dying. Tuesday morning Paula, mum and I went and saw him again. He was still coherent but had a lot of back and neck pain. After discussion with the doctor we decided that morphine was necessary and removal of feeding tube and iv drip to make him as comfortable as possible and not unecessarily prolong his time in hospital. We stayed most of the day but once the morphine took effect he slept a lot, just waking up briefly every now and then. Wednesday morning we went back to the hospital and he was not really waking up much at all. Yvonne arrived late morning. Paula and I talked about her arrival later and the great sense of relief we felt when she walked in, as though there was some sort of completion to our little group. We were all standing around his bed when his breathing became more shallow. He was lying slightly on his side and he opened his eyes and looked at Yvonne, Paula and mum in turn and then quietly passed away. It felt very sad but also peaceful. Even though he was not able to see me on the other side of the bed I had a very strong feeling he knew I was there.
He had a good life and lived much longer than any of us expected, including him. It is hard being at my parents home and not seeing him in his usual spots. There has been a lot of crying and a lot of happy remembering. He was a sweet gentle man and when he smiled his whole face would light up. He spent a lot of time on the water. When he was 16 he went to sea. Then the war broke out and he ended up in the merchant marines in convoys for the length of the war. He loved sailing on Pittwater and had a sailing boat big enough to sleep on and mum and dad would go out all week, come back for the weekend and go out again. We will scatter his ashes on Pittwater and remember the joy he got from sailing there.

There is sadness in his loss and joy in remembering his presence.

Linda