From the moment you all came to the hospital to pick me up and that photo, we still can’t find, of you holding tiny little me…
To the time you carried me into the hospital in Hawaii because my thumb was in the wrong spot when you closed the big car door.
For every song I sang you came to see. Every play I performed in, you came to watch.
For the times you knew I was nervous and coped with my irritability with patience and grace.
For the stories you read to me at night time when you tucked me in. Or the poetry we’d gleefully share around the kitchen table, not quite bothering to clear the dishes yet because we simply had to read some Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson or even C.J.Denis.
For the times we searched the shorter Oxford dictionary to find the origin of words and found that after all these years, we can still both be right.
When I found my own radical kind of faith, you embraced it and walked the path with me, finding a whole new kind of being born again. You even bought the T-shirt.
The time I took your arm and you walked me down the aisle to be married at such a young age. You gave your precious daughter away but that never meant I couldn’t run to my Dad’s arms when I needed you. And need you I did. Need you I still do.
The time we traveled the world together…. What fun we had.
This Father’s Day is a bit of a miracle.
Here you still are!!!!
And back home!!!
After more than a month away in hospital and rehab after having massive quintuple bypass surgery, you’re home and very much improved and I am here with you. How very blessed I am.
After my 49 years in your life, you needed me. That I could be there to hold your hand in the dark.
When the darkness felt like the light would never return, you let me help you.
When the sliding doors took you down a line that was utterly terrifying, you let me be there.
When the demons in your mind attacked you in that darkness, you let me be there to fight the battle alongside you and sometimes, fight for you. The honour you gave me to speak truth when you were caught in a tunnel of delirium is not lost on me. In all my years you’ve never asked for help like that. What a privilege to be asked. What grace to be able to fight the good fight with you my precious Daddy.
And we won!!!
The medicine worked. The battle was won. And, just like you’ve always led me by example, I didn’t give up on you either.
And then you let me read to you. You let me be the one to read and tuck you in. Oh my very blessed heart
Now your heart is healing. Your body getting stronger every day. Now you are back home in your house. You get to sleep in your bed. And I get the joy of spending time with you….still looking up words in the shorter Oxford Dictionary
Coz that’s just how we roll!!!!
She is still brave 