Part of me is missing

Two weeks ago, Monday 20th October, my dad died.

The enormity of this is impossible to describe.

A huge part of me is simply gone, and only part of me is left.

The initial shock is over, but this huge hollowness is left. And tears frequently leak uncontrollably from it.

My dad was a pillar of my life; for him not to be here seems an error, a wrongness, of universal magnitude. Some part of me believed he would go on forever.

He was diagnosed with stomach cancer about a year ago. He made very little fuss, and tried incredibly hard to fight it. My parents had a note stuck up on the kitchen door reading "Oregon or Bust" (beat the cancer or die trying) and this was that he did - he was in the middle of an xray session to determine why things had suddenly worsened so quickly in the last couple of weeks - and he just slipped quietly away in the middle of it.

He was not in pain, but was becomingly increasing frustrated at not being able to do the things he loved. A year ago, he was lecturing, ballroom dancing, and playing tennis, table tennis and badminton. He was totally alert to the very end and the night before he died updated a record of financial assets - thinking of my mum as always.

He was half-way through his tax return and we returned from the hospital, without him, to find it spread out on his desk. Nearby were his jacket, slippers, dressing gown, newspaper. All over the kitchen were bottles of medicines and lists of medical regimens. Outside, in the driveway, his beloved 1964 Vauxhall Viva. Which, two days after his death, I was trying to push start along the road near the house. My mum was tempted to drive it to the Thanksgiving Service but we were worried we might not make it. More fitting than the hearse, perhaps, would have been to strap the coffin to the roof rack of the old viva and send him off like that.

I wish I had thought to dig up that website for him before he died. He would have loved it.

A week after his death I put a new battery into the old car for my mum. He'd been planning to get a new one after the xrays. Knowing that if he said the old battery was nearly finished, it really was done for, I knew it was important to get a new battery without delay. Being too terrified (really) to drive it into town I opted to take my car to pick up the new battery and install it myself. This I did, in his driveway, using his spanners from his handmade wooden tool cupboard (spanners lovingly arranged by number).

As I tinkered around under the bonnet, I could feel him watching and having a good laugh.

He loved to laugh, particularly at my mom, who could crack him up with the anecdotes she recounted, complete with visual effects and impersonations. I used to love it when she told her stories - I loved the stories and I loved the way he loved them.

I knew in some intellectual part of me that he couldn't have that many months left, after all the chemo was no longer helping. Knowing how much he would hate it, I was dreading having to watch him lingering on terribly to a painful death, but I thought we would have a little more time before we got to that stage. Time for me to say things I wanted to say. Things that we, as a family, were not very good at putting into words.

You will always be part of me.
You are such a part of my present how can I move on with you just in my past?
Thank you for a wonderful childhood. For so much love, time, patience, and play.
For the parenting legacy you left me.
Where do you hide the key to the right hand side tool cupboard?

I love you, Dad.