05.04.2018

Last night as the final rays of daylight left World’s End and settled brightly over the heart of the world, you breathed your last and slipped into eternity. Four children felt a pillar of their lives crumple and a wife feels hollow. I wish I could wail and scream at the sky, purge these surging, consuming emotions that are beating against my heart with just one blood curdling soul wrenching scream and be done with it all. I want to be angry and sad and miserable, but I can’t be it doesn’t work like that, nothing is ever quite so simple. Through this haze of tears and with this heavy heart I feel only gratitude.

I do not believe you deserved the suffering you endured, yet I am so grateful that to the end you were alert and dignified. I wish we all had more time, just one more phone call or SKYPE. But I am so grateful that the end came quickly.  I am grateful for the bond we share, one that neither distance nor death could sever. My children won’t get the chance to learn from you, but I am grateful that they have magical memories because you indulged my sentimental side and let them talk to Santa every Christmas eve. You never let me win Dad, not once. But I am grateful for the lessons of humility, perseverance and conviction. I am grateful for the almost insurmountable expectations you held us to and for your unwavering belief in our abilities to reach those expectations. I am grateful for those memories that are uniquely our own, those frowns of disapproval and the twinkle of merriment that shone in your smile. I will be forever grateful that when God was handing out Dad’s he gave me you. It is impossible to feel misery or anger when every memory I have of you fills me with love, laughter and light. I know despite wanting you with us for longer that God needs you somewhere else so it is with a sad gratitude that I let you go.

You told me once that even though you would not always be the only man in my life, you would always be the first. So it is Dad, you will always be the first man I remember and you will be the last man I forget. Yours is the legacy I will give to my children.

So, as the sun turns its back on World’s end to shed light on the heart of the world once again, we begin our lives without our stalwart, our advisor, our mentor and we take a trepidatious step forward. I know one day no ocean or time will separate us, so I bid you one final goodnight. Rest peacefully Dad, I love you.