Dear old Dad!

It was typical of you to slip away unnoticed and without fanfare in the quiet hours of the early morning.  This same quietness seems to encircle my grief, still raw and unshaped, and I find myself not quite able to consign you to the past tense.

I am glad that, for you, there is no more sorrow nor sighing.  I can imagine you now catching up with Mum over a heavenly cuppa, and relishing the opportunity to quiz the New Testament writers on questions of authorship and use of vocabulary.  You have an infinitely wide audience for your dreadful puns, and are no doubt ensuring that everyone feels quite comfortable!  I learned so much from you – faith, fun and laughter, how to ask a good question, to be courageous, to love music, as well as a generous hospitality and how wonderful a cup of tea can be in a crisis.  I miss the way your mouth would twitch at the corners as you thought up a new pun; your wheezy laugh and your crinkly-eyed smile; you in your favourite tatty jumper with the patched elbows, and the silly socks worn with your sandals.  I miss your conversation, your wisdom, your ingenuity. Memories of the momentous (you walking me down the aisle on my wedding day; you holding our newborn children) rub shoulders with the mundane (a shared smile over a cup of tea; watching a sugar cube sink into the foam on a cappuccino as a test of quality). I am happy to share your love of ducks and fondness for bears, especially koalas, even though they aren’t really bears at all, but arborial marsupials! I am proud to be called your daughter, and so grateful to share that privilege with my sisters.

God bless you, dear old Dad x