A Tribute To My Wonderful Daddy, Who Died of Cancer
By: Kirsty W
Tags: Grief, Dads, Parents, Cancer, Tribute

Due to the current situation, I don’t get to write an eulogy. I don’t get to exchange stories with loved ones at a funeral. Nor can I see my friends to have a shoulder to cry on and a cuddle. Self-indulgent perhaps, but I feel the need to share with anyone that has the time and patience to read it, what a wonderful, wonderful person my Dad was.

There are lots of things that I will remember my Dad by.

He was a musician, and as a child, I’d always nod off to the gentle strumming of him playing jazz guitar in his study. It was like a personal lullaby, before he’d stick his head into my room and whisper ‘goodnight, god bless’ like clockwork. Our house was filled with weird and wonderful instruments — a twin necked guitar, a six-string bass, a mandolin, a lute; to the more regular instruments, like the saxophone he bought for £30 in 1968. I took for granted how lucky I was to have a Dad that could teach me music.

His love of music resulted in him becoming a music teacher, which then sparked his interest about how some children learn differently. It prompted a change of career that took him into psychology, and later into the niches of neurofeedback and brain science. Sometimes, friends would pop over and he’d measure their head. He’d often go to sleep wearing flashing goggles that synchronize brain activity. His study is full of mannequin heads marked with coloured pins. The twists and turns in his career combined with his love of learning meant he was a forever student. An academic — you’d need two hands to count all his university qualifications.

He didn’t study for letters he could put next to his name. He was like a living, breathing history book — an encyclopaedia that had an answer to almost everything I asked — both as a child, and as an adult. I felt lucky I could almost always count on him to know something about any given subject and have an interesting opinion. I have no idea how he hoarded so much information in his head.

It’s not just knowledge he stored either. His study was adorned from floor to ceiling with books and ring-binder files, stacked up like Jenga blocks — almost a textured wall paper. I find comfort sitting in his study, surrounded by the chaos he left behind. I’ve found comic books from the 60s, address books from the 70s and Woolworth’s receipts from the early 80s. There’re crystals, fossils, sheet music print outs, newspaper cuttings, magic tricks, scruffy hand-written notes, and letters from charities he supported.

On his desk, there’s a little jar next to the keyboard which had become a laughing point. A couple of years ago when he was in hospital, he asked us to bring him a memory card kept in a jar. To our horror, we found a jar full to the brim of toenail clippings. His justification was that I collected them as a seven-year-old, like some horrible grubby little children do, along with scabs, pencil shavings and other curiosities. He got into the habit of collecting them for me and didn’t stop. I picked up this revolting jar the other day and flicked between tears of sorrow and laughs of joy.

The jar is just one example of how I am surrounded by memories of his kindness. For example, our home is covered in paw print designed blankets for our pets. It reminds me of when we went on holiday to Greece and fell in love with a stray dog. On returning home, he figured out a plan, and got Mum to drive him to the airport in the wee hours so he could get the next flight out to Greece. He found the dog — called Ella — got her checked into a place to quarantine, then six months later he picked her up from France.

He was fun too. In school, he taught a naughty student called Greta, who had a phobia of eyes. He went to the butcher and got a pig’s eye. He wanted to teach her a lesson, so once made her sit at the front desk next to him. He pretended to adjust his contact lenses, but then acted out that he’d accidentally popped out his eyeball, as he swiftly got out the pig’s eye and rolled it towards her where it bounced into her lap. Greta ran out screaming. He loved practical jokes and had an infectious laugh that I already miss.

This last week has been tough, churning up thoughts and emotions that I hadn’t expected. I sit down and gaze out of the window and before I know it, hours have passed where I’ve done nothing but recall memories of him. When I first found out the cancer was terminal, I begun feeling regret and sorrow about milestones I wouldn’t get to share with him. He’ll never see my sister graduate, walk either of us down the aisle, or see any grandchildren that might come — not that that’s ever been important to me. Now he’s gone, although it’s clear I’m fortunate enough to have the most supportive people I could ever imagine around me, one of the people who has loved me unconditionally from the day I was born, has gone. It leaves me feeling lost and less important.

His decline was fast, and the cancer was so aggressive — he described it as Genghis Khan on steroids. It was sad — he still had so much more to give and desperately wanted to stay alive. His ambitious yet optimistic goal was to reach my sister’s 24th birthday. Yet he died just 29 days after her 23rd birthday. Comforting him from this guilt of leaving us behind, especially my sister who is so young to lose her Dad, was heart breaking. In his last days he was too poorly to finish his business — he’d wanted to sort out his clutter, write down what practicalities needed to be done after his passing, write us goodbye notes, and write birthday cards for my sister’s big birthdays he’d miss. On his last day, he apologised that his time had run out. He wasn’t willing to wave a white flag and accept defeat until the very end when it was all too late — he had promised he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

I knew he was dying, but it was still a shock when one moment he was here, the next his chest lay still. I went to check his pulse, only to feel his body had stiffened. We sat with him as he looked like he was sleeping in his chair, waiting for a doctor to confirm his death for six hours. I accept he is gone as I was confronted with it so bluntly. But I still struggle to accept that I won’t ever see him again or hear his voice. Each morning I’ve woken up, and for a second, everything feels fine. Then I remember, and that sting returns that I’m waking up to another day without my Dad, and he’s drifted further away from me into the past. It feels like he is becoming a memory, rather than a real living person as he was just a week ago.

I occasionally become distracted, but then something will bring back the surge of sadness that rises up like a tsunami and takes me out, causing me to crumple to my knees and sob uncontrollably. But through all this sadness, the feeling that I hadn’t anticipated being so strong, is an immense feeling of gratitude. I was lucky to have a Dad that cared so much. Even small things, like getting a cake in a café — he would say, ‘you have what you want, and I’ll have whatever’s left’. When breaking the news to friends — his kindness has come up over and over again. He was a selfless, eccentric, kind-hearted soul who made the best Dad, and I am honoured that he got to be my Dad.

According to the poem, ’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’, and this really resonates with me now. His absence has left such a gaping hole, because his presence was so significant. This is such a painful experience, as it reflects how close we were. I am grateful for his guidance, the memories, his ethics, and everything down to his last love-filled text he sent before he became too ill to write.

It’s times like these, that I wish I believed in heaven. And more than anything, I wish heaven had a phone. I just wish I could call him up and tell him one more time how wonderful he was, because he truly was.

Rest In Peace Dad x