Dear Dad . . .

Yesterday my father would have been 77 years old. But in fact he died 13 years ago in March, 1999 aged 64. In those 13 years I don’t think there has been a single day where I have not thought about my father or remembered something of his wisdom, advice, kindness or generosity of spirit.

That is not to say that his death did not make me angry. It did. It was way too early. He never saw me married (or indeed divorced). He never saw me make a success of my career – something I think he worried about. He never saw me become my own man. (Although many believe that one only becomes one’s “own man” upon the death of one’s father . . .) and his friendship was taken away from me far too early. And I miss it.

My father never showed up to sports where I played. Too busy. He never understood what I did for a living. Not interested enough. He never showed much emotion or affection. Not able to find the way. As a result my relationship with him was distant in some ways and very close in others.

The day of his funeral I wrote him a letter. I read that letter in the church – which was so full, people were gathered outside. He was a much loved man.

I was the only person in the church who did not cry during my reading of the letter. 

Indeed I did not grieve my father with tears until nearly two years later when I read that letter again one afternoon and began to cry, later wailing. It lasted for 3 hours without pause. I cried until I could cry no more.

I still read this letter from time to time and remember my father. My friend. My guide. I have more or less forgiven him for all the ways he rejected me – perhaps unknowingly – as a child, and for finally abandoning me in his death. Now I simply miss him and wish I could have his advice from time to time.

Fortunately he was a man of strong principle and strong values and I have those principles and values to guide me in his absence.

Our parents are precious. I hadn’t seen my father for more than a month before he died – putting off visits to home because I was too busy in my life, not calling to speak, because I’d get around to it next week. . . 

After his funeral and I returned to my apartment in London, I found a message on the answering machine from him. It asked me to give him a call and let him know how I was doing etc. He had left it a few days before he died. I had not returned his call. And for the last 13 years, I have wished that I had.

The letter I wrote to him for his funeral is below:

Dear Dad

Although it is not long since we last spoke, suddenly ‘last’ has new meaning for both of us. It seems strange that we will never again speak to each other, that we will never again laugh with each other, that we will never again argue with each other.

I don’t know how to say how much I miss you, I don’t know if it is even possible to measure, just as I don’t know how to say how much I love you.

Before you left, you gave us a little time to say the things we wanted to say to you, but suffice to say that whatever was said, it will never do justice to what I felt and feel about you, my father, my friend, my guide.

There are things which you have shown me and taught me that I haven’t yet understood, and part of your legacy is that one day I will and for that I thank you.

One of the most painful parts of knowing that you are gone, is knowing that you are not there anymore. Not there to ask a question, not there to give me advice, not there to ask a favour of. Although you are not there anymore, you will, however, always be here, with me, with mum, with Charlie and with all your many friends, because although you have gone, you will continue to live with us, with so many memories happy and sad, and with so many reasons to be grateful to you.

Your quiet, unassuming approach to life was characterised by your compassion, your dignity and your pride, but most of all by your unqualified respect for your fellow man, be he patient, colleague, friend or family.

You always believed in the right and the proper. In a selfish world, you were always generous, in a cruel world, always kind. Always human, always humane, you helped so many people in so many ways, but never expected anything in return.

And for this I love you, for this I am grateful to you and for this I will always remember you.

I have so much to thank you for, as my father and as my friend. If I could be half the man you were, I would be truly proud, as I am truly proud of you.

In finishing these words, I recall something you wrote in the front of your bible as a child:

Take nothing away from it

Add nothing to it

Change nothing in it

Believe all of it

God bless you Dad.

Your loving son,

David