Originally Posted by JPH83
Hi Duncan, my dad passed away on Jan 12th, we had his funeral last week.
It was an odd one as he wasn't around from the age of 10. He worked in oil and gas all over the world and for about 20 years I barely saw him, aside from a couple of killer holidays visiting him in Brazil and the like.
It was weird putting together his funeral service. There were loads of messages from old colleagues saying how great craic he was etc etc and I just thought - well, damn, I'm glad he had fun, but I don't know this guy much at all. There were photos of him I'd never seen, and family ones stopped when we were young.
He came back to live in the UK about 10 years ago from California and pretty much hated it. Covid, divorce from his 2nd wife, boozing all put him down a path. My sister and I tried to intervene but he wouldn't listen. Or at least wouldn't act.
I think he had a pretty good life, but he died way too young (73, his dad lived into his mid-90s). My friends asked me if his dying had made me re-think anything. My only thought, which I've thought for awhile, was that you can live your life without responsibility and kinda selfishly, but you will always pay a price in the end. My mum grinded and now has a great retirement, loads of friends, active etc. My dad didn't and he died sad and lonely, I think.
I feel a lot of things. Guilt for maybe not being a better son, anger, sheer incredulity at his ****wittery at times, obviously sad we never had the relationship we might. It comes in waves. I read a story at his funeral and my sister read a poem, I think we did him justice.
One nice thing was he was a runner. Got polio age 5 and almost died, tried running to build up his strength, found out he was pretty good, apparently. Won loads of cups etc. We found his old athletics club and wanted to know if there were any pics. There weren't, but he still holds the Under-17s records in the 600 and 800ms...from 1969. So, 55 years, think he ran 1.54.7 age 16 or something. Kind of a cool legacy that he's disappointed 55 years' worth of aspiring young local runners who never beat his records!
Anyway, sorry to all for rambling, I hope you're doing OK Duncan.
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