Farewell to my other Father

Two years and one day after my mother-in-law passed away, I will be sitting with my husband at a funeral parlour again, this time saying goodbye to his father, my father-in-law and the only grandfather my children have ever known (my dad passed away before they were born).

I have known Neil for almost 35 years. My husband-to-be and I started dating when I was 17, and he took me to meet his parents at their new house.  Apparently I said something cheeky to them, and my sister-in-law to be was quite shocked.  I just thought I should start out the way I meant to continue!  I got away with saying a lot of things to Neil that many other people probably wouldn’t have.

Neil and I have always gotten along well.  He has driven me crazy on more than one occasion, and I’m sure I used to drive him crazy too.  We certainly didn’t always agree, but we’ve always been close.

Neil told me on numerous occasions how much he appreciated me being there for him when his youngest son left to go and live in America.  We were all excited for him, but Neil was devastated at losing him.  I don’t remember what I said, but apparently I was the only one who acknowledged how he was feeling.  I could usually pick up when he was upset.

We spent a lot of Friday nights and Sunday nights at his parents house while G & I were dating.  It used to always amaze me how Neil could never just sit and watch TV and enjoy his Sunday evenings, he would always dread having to go back to work on Monday.  From the time he was about 72, he used to tell me he was “almost 80".  I used to laugh and say “you’re nowhere near 80!!!”

I remember going to their house on many occasions for parties.  The offer was always open for us or his eldest son and his wife to use their home.  G and I celebrated our engagement party at their house.  My nephew's 3rd birthday party was also held there, and I still remember the look of horror on Neil’s face when 15 x 3 year olds and their mums turned up!  He was very proud of his house and didn't want it getting wrecked.

I always admired Neil’s musical ability.  He loved playing the sax for us - and he especially liked being asked to play.  Sometimes he'd come and visit and carry the sax in from the car, and the kids would want him to play straight away (after a 4 hour drive) and he wouldn't play then.  But when he was in the mood, he loved playing for them.  I remember one night he was playing on our verandah on a beautiful, still evening.  The next day the lady from down the road said how much she'd enjoyed hearing him play.  He got a real kick out of that sort of thing.

He also loved to show off his yodeling ability to our kids.  He loved listening to my daughter playing the violin, and my son playing the piano.  He always encouraged our kids to pursue their musical talent.  He formed a band with my husband and his eldest brother before I knew them and they used to play for dances.

He built a couple of tennis practice walls - he gave one to us and he had one in his backyard.  He was a great inventor.  I used to tell him that he should patent his inventions.  I think he could have made a lot of money on his inventions.  It’s a shame that my kids never really got to play much tennis with Neil.  He was a great tennis player and a good sport.  He told me once that boxing was probably his best sport, except that he didn’t have a killer instinct so that would have been his downfall.

Neil amazed me the way he took to technology.  When he first got a computer, he would often ring me up and ask me questions.  But it didn't take him long to work out how to use it.  He was always emailing, sending photos or videos, or showing me something on his i-pad.  He knew more about the i-pad than I did.  I used to laugh when he first started sending emails as they were written like telegrams.  I’m not sure if he realised that he wasn’t paying per word!

I have always thought of myself as being very stubborn, but he was way more stubborn!!  He had very set ideas about things.  If anyone made a suggestion, but it didn’t line up with what he wanted, it was not on.  He was very pedantic about his way of doing certain things.  If you messed up something on his computer, watch out!!

He had an extraordinary talent with remembering dates.  If I ever rang him up and said “do you know what today is?” he would always know which anniversary it was.  I used to always ring him on the anniversary of his son leaving Australia, but this year, with everything that was happening, I totally forgot.  I bet he remembered though.

He could recite poetry from memory, and he wrote a lot of poems.  He would often quote one of the poems that he had written.  His talent for predicting the weather was astounding.  If it was going to rain any time in the next 2 weeks, Neil would know about it.  He could also forecast long range - if I wanted to know what the weather is usually like in the last week in October - he'd know!  He was the person who taught me about the moon rising - the time difference each night and the changing angle.  I’d never even noticed it before that.

Family was very important to Neil.  He thought the world of his 3 boys.  He had a close relationship with his parents, siblings, nieces & nephews and his grandchildren.  He was always very proud of his family’s accomplishments.  Neil was a very caring person and good-hearted.  He loved giving and getting gifts.  Years ago, my sister, mother and I all decided that we would stop giving gifts, as we all have everything we want or need.  I tried to convince Neil that we should give up gift giving, but he wouldn't have a bar of it!  He would normally post the kids their birthday presents so they would have them on the day, even if we were going to see him the week afterwards.

Neil and I would ring each other regularly and have chats about all sorts of things.  It was mostly the every day things that we chatted about, what we’d been up to that week.  He'd tell me how he had been playing for a dance - how that went etc.  I'd tell him what the kids were up to.  Whenever I would ring, he’d always been out shopping or was just about to go shopping.  He hated being at home alone.  When I think back on our chats now, I wish we had spoken about more important things.  It was only when he was really sick, two months ago, that I got the opportunity to properly share with him how much God loved him and how Jesus died for him.

After almost 35 years, I sit here thinking “where did that time go?”  We often spoke of how life seems to speed up as you get older.

I started typing up Neil’s life story some years back, but we never got it anywhere near finished. He decided he didn’t want to keep doing it, which was a shame, because all those stories will never be told now. One story that made me laugh this week when I was reading his memoires, was about when he was in the Army.  He told me how he wanted to learn to dance.  To get away from some of the army blokes that were with him, he would talk to a prostitute off the street, walk along with her to the corner and then when he was out of sight, he’d say sorry to her, that he had something to do and he would go off to the dance class.  Then the next day the blokes would go on about him going off with the women, but they didn’t know he went to dancing classes!

Neil - I’m going to miss you!  My husband is going to miss his father, and the kids are going to miss their Grandad.  You've been a blessing to our family, and we love you.