Just because...

This is a hard blog to write but I think it deserves to be written.

My Dad died last Sunday evening following a fall at home on Friday night. He tripped over the wire that fed him the oxygen that enabled him to breath and broke his hip - it's ironic how the very thing that helped to keep him alive also contributed to his death. Because of his breathing problems the surgeons couldn't operate straight away, electing to wait to try and ensure he had the best fighting chance before receiving an anesthetic, but it wasn't to be and he gradually slipped out of consciousness over the following two days, until he succumbed to the heart attack we all knew would eventually take him.


In part I have to confess a little relief, both for him and selfishly for myself too - we'd all watched him fade from the strong,fearless man that he used to be; the man who built boats and canoes, swimming pools and amphi theatres in the grounds of the school he used to teach in, the man who carved wood and forged metal into beautiful objects and taught himself calligraphy so he could write in a beautiful script - into a frail, chair ridden man waging war with heart problems, cancer and diabetes, who struggled just to breath and get through the day. Though I'm currently missing him dearly, his quality of life latterly was almost non existent, so I'm determined to remember my dad as the vibrant creative man he once was, seizing the day and enjoying life to the full.....