Dear Dad My Angel

Friday August 13, 1930 -  6:45am Wednesday 16th May 2012


Dear Dad I love you
Dear Dad, you make me proud.
Dear Dad, these thoughts are written on my soul
But rarely said out loud. 

Dear Dad my angel
Dear Dad my shining star
Dear Dad my guiding light 
Shine on me now from afar.

A terribly sad day but freedom for him, my lovely Dad.

 © 2012 S Evans All Rights Reserved

Manuel's Prayer

I cry a little every day

Watching, cell by cell, as you wither away

Say bye to bye to you every day

Watching, pixel by pixel, as you turn to grey

And I walk the lonely corridor

That inches, foot by foot to your door

Head hung, silently speaking to the floor

That slips, step by step beneath me once more

Pushing the sprung glass screens aside

I ring the bell, turn the key and walk inside

And I see your pain

It needs no wise men now to explain

Who did you talk to today?

I ask, as I watch you turning slowly to grey

And with a long breathe I raise my spirit higher

Don't want to let you see my eyes on fire

I Smile like all the days before

My fear, outside, hunched down on the floor

It walks back along the corridor with me when I leave

And I let myself cry once more

 

But as long as I have the corridor

I still have you

As long as I have the pain

I still have things to do

To care and love, to criticise, and complain

To pull and push and redirect the same

I know the door will close at last

And you will rest in ages past

I know the day will surely come

I know thy will will be done

And I know the bell will toll

And God will claim his soul

I just wish there were gentler ways

I know nothing

I learn nothing

I hear nothing

Nothing’s nothing knocking at my door

Nothing ever stays.

 © 2012 S Evans All Rights Reserved

Time is merciless, although I will soon be needing its healing power, but these last few days I have walked along the corridor to an empty flat, just collecting this and that. And getting used to the fact that these will be amongst my final journeys there. It's clear now his days are limited and painful days too, clear to him no less that anyone. In a saner world this wouldn't be the way.

Dear Dad

Good morning blog. This is a further adventure in my feelings. I found this on the notebook thing on my iPhone. I don't really remember writing it or even when I wrote it. The clever iPhone tells me it was on March 1st 2012

I think I know why I did. I wanted something for him, something from my heart, something that I could let my Dad see. I wanted to tell him the easiest thing you should be able to tell someone whom you love dearly, that I loved him.

How stupid it is that that isn't as easy as it sounds. 

He also always jokes whenever we talk about the past that it's always my mother my stories feature, 'you had a father too you know' he'll say. I suppose that's because I still have a father and stories are all I have left of my mum. Anyway this one is for him...


Dear Dad I love you
Dear Dad, you make me proud.
Dear Dad, these thoughts are written on my soul
But rarely said out loud.


Now I just have to let him see it :)

He went into the hospice on Tuesday, it was a bit sudden and a bit of a shock. But they are hoping to stabilise him and send him home still. He has been very low... in and out of sleep and with very little patience for almost anything when he is awake. I managed to leave it till then to pass this over to him. He put on his glasses, with a little help from me, and he spent a couple of minutes reading it... then he smiled.

In my life I've loved them all

There's a tune to this one! 

We left Liverpool in two cars, me driving my Dad's Honda Jazz back up to Scotland and Gail driving our car. both full of the things we wanted to keep. As is my want I started imagining and thinking and reminiscing and wallowing! A good internet friend had given me the first line and the rest flowed along the motorway. The journey seemed to sail by, certainly the turn off to Preston did  as I found myself en-route to Manchester on the M62 before I knew it.

Much later as I crossed the border into Scotland the last line was penned and I enjoyed the rest of the drive knowing I had managed to capture snapshots of my early life in verse.

Liverpool nestles softly in the pocket of my heart

And angels whisper to me never to depart.

Take me back to Exley Street

Playing at my mother’s feet.

We kissed the girls and made them cry

Paul and Michael, Pete and I.

Names and places, thoughts and things 

The beauty that these memories bring

Little houses in a row

I don’t know why they had to go.

A block of flats on Greenbank Drive 

Where a girl kissed me...oh man alive.

I got a job and left my school

Paisley shirts and joiners tools.

But around the bend past Netherley 

And Woodlands joins the memory.

Names and places, thoughts and things

The beauty that these memories bring.

A kit of drums and a mini car 

Now I wonder who you are?

Just one more stop along the road 

Mossleyhill where they grew old.

Jean and Margaret, Bob and Tom

Then I packed my case and kissed my mum.

Names and places, thoughts and things

The beauty that these memories bring

Bitter-sweet the memories fade

And angels flutter in the shade

Oh Liverpool you bonny place

You sunny, sunny land

And all the hearts that you embrace 

Will know and understand.

Liverpool you bonny place

You sunny, sunny land

And all the souls whose lives we trace

Leave footprints in the sand.

 Auntie Elsie, Uncle Hol

Our Bill and Viv, 

Joyce and Val

Billy Miles

Granny Evans, 

Old Bill

Margie Blow, 

Mrs Ackers

Terry Keenan and Lilly

Terry, Carol, Tommy

Pauline & Marie

Sonny Moffat, Albert Lancs

The Benyons, 

Mush the dog

Peter, Paul and Michael

Raymond Peers

Susan Murray

Margaret Jones

Jimmy Molyneux

Vivienne Yates

Daz and Woody

Mr Banks

Dave and Dave and Dave 

Janet and Janice

Mr and Mrs Thompson

Barry

Ms Shepherd (inlahabou)

Violet and Harold Sharp

Harry the caretaker

Carol and Terry

Netta 

Bert Potter

Peter McGovern and Rita

Geof and Mac

Sister Marion

Kenny John and Cid

Margaret, Di and Thelma

Dot and Colin

Derek and Jude

Remember 

 

© 2010 S Evans All Rights Reserved

Mossleyhill Road, 31st March 2012

.

This was my mother and father's house in Liverpool which they bought in 1975. Once my dad moved up to Edinburgh we put the house on the market. When the sale was confirmed we spent several weekends in Liverpool clearing the place, it was quite a difficult process. 

Anyway it's done now and a young family has bought the house with two small children. It's quite a nice thought that the house will have children in it opening Christmas presents and having birthday's there. Good luck and best wishes to them. 

It was a happy home for us, all the memories are good ones. I was 19 when they moved there, just completing my apprenticeship and I used the house to practice my emerging skills. Some of the things I built where still there when we said goodbye to it on that weekend. 

As seems to be the norm on these occasions a little rhyming thought jumped into my head as we made the final preparations...

 
Tonight the house will be empty and we will sleep on the floor.
Tomorrow I'll leave the keys behind and we wont come back no more :(