Saying GoodBye

Hi After a couple of trying weeks I am back and firstly I thought I would share how we said good bye to my Dad. It would seem strange to say that a funeral could be a happy occasion but, although we had tears my dads good bye was filled with laughter. I think he had the last laugh as he had very bad dress sense and one of his wishes was that at his funeral there should be no black, so as dad always wore Hawaiian shirts or pink shirts, we thought this should be the dress code. In one of our local shops they could not understand the rush on pink shirts and ties, until someone explained it was for a funeral!




My dad was known as Homie as he worked in a power station so on his flowers we had an little Homie as the centre piece. The power station even had 2 min's of silence and the flags a half mast for my dad. (the last time they did that was when the Queen Mother died) He always thought he was 'King' of the power station. When we arrived at the crematorium I could not believe how many people turned up to say good bye there was over 200 people and all had honoured my dads wishes and wore bad shirts and shorts, even the vicar wore his brightest outfit.

In the service there was tears and laughter, and although my sister are very forward and talking to everyone, I am not so my bit for dad was to do the service sheets. On these I used a water mark of a Scuba Diver as dad was a trustee for the Scuba Trust (a disabled Diving Organisation).
My Kids said goodbye by sending balloons up to heaven one was a motorbike, as dad rode a vintage one, and the other was a me to you bear, carrying a hug.

The last lines of the poem I put on the service sheet summed up my dad and how he would want us to be:' You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back, or you can do what he would want: Smile, open your eyes, love and go on.'

Thank you to everyone who sent their thoughts.