Remembering Don

Four years ago today my step-dad Don passed away. It's been a while since I thought of him with a stab of grief, but I've realised there is one thing I am really sad about. I'm sad that he never got to see this blog. I know he would have been chuffed about it, and very happy that I was writing. But more than that, I'm sad that I don't get to write about him here, in the present tense.

I would have loved writing about him here.

Don was not a stand-out character. He was the kind of person you could easily miss in a crowd of people. He was quiet and unassuming. He was happy to be in the background. He loved to help, he was a willing dishwasher and an able cook, and for most of his marriage to Mum he took his fair share of the house-cleaning load. In his last few months of life he lost much of his strength, but I remember going around to their place a week or so before he died, and he'd just cleaned the windows. He was tired from the effort, but it was important for him to do it, he wanted to help.

He was an auto-electrician by trade, so he was a tinkerer and a fixer. He always had some sort of workshop set up at home. He loved to read. He loved cats. When he and Mum got married he was fifty, and had lived with his mother for most of his life. He took a while to adjust to having a family, and I remember in those first couple of years he would often talk to the cat, even when he couldn't talk to any of us.

Don didn't find it easy to understand my sister and I, the selfish and at times surly teenagers that we were. But he slowly and steadily won our hearts. He was reliable, generous, kind, gentle and often thoughtful. And those were the qualities that remained as he grew older, despite the stroke he suffered in his late sixties. Those were the qualities that made him the loveliest Grandad, a role which brought him so much joy. He wasn't the kind of Grandad that could run around or play rough and tumble, but he was his happiest with a baby on his lap, and always ready to give a cuddle or read a story.

At seventy-four, he died young. It was clear, just before he died, that he would have given anything to live just that bit longer. He would have been thrilled to see his eldest granddaughter start school, and he would have been over the moon to be adding two new grandchildren to his brood. He was a devoted husband, right to the end. But his heart had been through a lot. Three heart attacks, two quadruple heart by-passes and a stroke. We used to joke about how much he got out of the public health system, but the fact was that he got a lot out of his life. He lived out every last ounce of life in him.

I'd give anything for him to walk in the door now, to sit down next to me on the couch and talk. I'd be so happy to hear about the latest book he was reading, what the cat had been up to, or the plans he had for the coming week. I know he'd ask me how I was, genuinely, and then listen. I'd give anything to hear him laugh.

You've probably got someone like Don in your life. He might be your own dad or step-dad, an old friend or neighbour. Don't miss the treasure that he is. Listen to him, take care of him, but more than anything, enjoy him.  Make sure he knows how precious he is to you. In fact, today, even if only to humour me, enjoy all the people you love. Make sure they know how much they mean to you. I'll be doing just that, because it seems to me to be the best way I know of remembering Don.