Those We Have Lost

Today, my Dad would have been 77, had he not been taken suddenly from us nearly 14 years ago.

We have a tendency to eulogise those who have gone, putting them on pedestals and claiming that they were faultless and saintly. Well, obviously I’m biased but he really was like that.

He seldom talked about his younger years as – plainly unlike me – he had something of a disregard for the past, living for now and looking ahead. Equally unlike me, he was quiet, calm and often (though I didn’t realise it at the time) a calming, steadying influence on me. Everyone he met (and I really do mean this, too) liked him. I suspect my rating is somewhat lower than that!

I hope I share some of his attributes, though. He was limitlessly kind, very wise and above all “Good”.

I still miss you…….and Happy Birthday, Dad.

By a strange coincidence, Dad shared his birthday with his mother-in-law. She would have been 112 today!

I never knew her (or indeed any of my grandparents, which has always been a source of regret to me. My mother has always been very good at letting me about them all, though; again, something about which I’m very glad.

Amelia Green was born Amelia Smith, in Wednesbury. By all accounts she was one of those ladies who was always busy, not only bringing up six children but losing one of them in infancy. She was again very kind (and would give anyone her last penny), loud, determined, opinionated and always right.

There is something in this genetic make-up stuff, isn’t there? J