Happy Birthday Dad

Today would have been my Dads 63rd birthday.

Dad passed away on the 25th August 2008 after a short but devastating fight with pancreatic cancer. He fought it bravely despite it being the worst case scenario right from diagnosis.

Dads plight started on July the 15th 2008 when he was taken in to hospital with a stroke, I was away with work at the time and it came as a big shock and I made the trip up to see him in Hull Royal Infirmary. Dad followed his stroke 3 days later with a massive heart attack that left him in a coma in intensive care. I'll always remember being briefed before I saw him on all the tubes etc and how it can be distressing. It was but it wasn't the tube from his mouth I found distressing it was the tubes from his neck, nothing prepares you for this at all no amount of briefing. Dad had 3 outcomes and only 1 of them was positive!

Thankfully he woke and it seemed like it we had been blessed with the only positive outcome to much relief. Dad spent a few days in ICU and then high dependancy before heading back to the stroke ward. But the reality was hitting as to why had he had a stroke before the heart attack and not the other way round. It was 10 days after his heart attack on the 29th of July that we got the pancreatic cancer diagnosis. There was nothing they could do at all to prolong his life that bit longer, chemo and radiotherapy were not an option, it was both too aggressive (there was a secondary in his liver) and dangerous because of his heart attack.

We just had to watch helplessly as he faded away in front of us. It was just over a month to approx about 6 weeks in all. It was the school summer holidays so I didn't have to worry about work and I was making the 40 mile round trip to see him most days from my mums house (they'd been divorced for 24 years) on the South Bank. I spent the weekends back in the Midlands with the lovely R. When I wasn't with Dad I was helping my Mum move back into her house that had been devastated in the June 2007 floods. I didn't know whether I was coming or going to be honest... my 32nd birthday came and I never knew that I would be doing something special for my Dad the day after my birthday... I referred him myself to Dove House Hospice in Hull I wanted my Dad to die with peace and dignity and it was less than 16 hours from my call to us getting acceptance for him to go in, Dad just had to hang on in there till a bed became available. Unfortunately it was not to be the cancer had taken too much hold and 24 hours later he developed Pneumonia and well that really was the beginning of the end. I had my last conversation with him where he was lucid and could recognise me the next day and 3 days later he was gone and I managed to get there just in time. Dad died just a little over 10 months after his own Mum had died and he was the last out of his parents and his siblings (he was the eldest too).

The days after seemed wierd once his funeral was organised. Not going to the hospital seemed strange as it had so quickly become routine.

I was and am proud of how Dad and I had rebuilt our relationship over an 8 year period (having not seen or spoke for a number of years). We both unspoken but somehow mutually agreed and managed that the past was that, the past and what was important was the here and now. We would visit my Grandma together, go for a pint, talk utter nonsense over a cuppa, he came to visit me at Uni in 2000 in York and when my Grandma past away in Oct 2007 we went to Bridlington quite poignant as thats where we used to go with my Grandma when I was younger for days out, Dad would go fishing. We particularly grew alot closer in the last 18 months and we did sort everything out before he died we didn't really need to say much just enough for both of us to know that we both loved each other and always had, that the love had never been broken despite us not talking.

I can see now that my Mum and Dad were not right for each other and it hurts when people try to remind me of the past... i know the past but I'm not going to live in it. I moved on, Dad moved on, Mum has moved on and I love my Mum with all my heart she is my rock, solid rock, but I needed my Dad too.

The day of Dads funeral I was determined to drive behind the hearse in Henry my Ford Focus as I had done with my Dad 10 months earlier for my Grandmas. I did with tears streaming down my face but I did it, did it for Dad. He liked my car, we both liked Fords.

Once the funeral was over though I felt as though I had to smile... and I remember meeting a friend for tea and a movie and being up beat and jovial. Inside though I was hurting. The new term started the following Monday just 4 days after the funeral and in the end I dipped out of the first day and spent the weekend in the Lakes trying to get myself on track for going back to work. The reality was I wasn't ready and I rushed back and the next term was one of the worst for a long time and I have never felt so alone. I didn't cope at all well.

I miss Dad so so much, I don't have a photograph to keep from his latter years and I have no idea where his ashes are to go and spend a few minutes with him. But I still have the love in my heart and I have no regrets. I'm proud of the last few years and they will stay with me always.

I miss you Dad, I love you... HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Sall xx