Saying Goodbye

16 May 2011

Dear Dad,

Well mate, it's been a month.

It's been a month since we fare welled you in the Patearoa Hall, with your mates and your family gathered to smile and remember you.

The Hall was full Dad, you would have been stoked to see so many people there, and I just know you'd have been keen to catch up for a yarn with each and every one of them. There were people you'd never met or hadn't seen for years there too, all there to show there support when we really needed them, and we'll love those people forever.

I think the viewing us girls did the morning before the funeral was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I'm glad I did it though, it made if real, actually seeing you there in that box. But it wasn't you either? Do you know what I mean? The person in the box was too thin, too pale, too cold, too still. Just your shell. You were long gone. What made you YOU had already gone off to bigger and better things. The funeral director gave Mum a gold trinket, that had been broken in half, one half to go with you, one half to stay with her. It was a beautiful token. I patted your hair and said goodbye, and we cried. Me, Jen, Paula, Mum and Case.

You funeral was at 1:30, it was a grey day, but not wet. I had been thinking it, and Jen had said it out loud:
'The sun, for sorrow, will not show it's head'

We played Slim Dusty for you Dad, a song picked by Mum as we walked in, 'Walk a country Mile' for the reflection and 'Leave him in the Longyard' as you were carried out. It was fitting.

Jen, Mike, Tim and I spoke, you would have loved Tim's story about you losing a spring off the bailer, how you'd told him days later you thought the spring must still be in orbit. He wondered if you've found it now.

Mike, Mike, Paula, Tim, Stu and Fraser carried you out. Andy stood with us, too distraught to talk.

And then you were gone.

We drank coffee and talked with your friends in the Patearoa bowling club, and when it was over, it was over. And we went home, exhausted and drained and cried out.

A fitting tribute for one hell of a good man.

I love you Dad, and I miss you.
I think you would have liked your funeral, I think we saw you off well.
Love Cath
xoxo