It must be the saddest thing to say goodbye to a man you've spent your entire life with. Mum met Dad through her brother when she was 16, and the two of them were married by 20, and had me at 21. The photograph below is Dad at army training - both families had drive up to Puckapunyl, the army training camp in Victoria, Australia, to visit him. He'd spend five months in Vietnam doing 'intelligence' - which he always laughs about - before coming home, having not been affected by war much at all, though he'd already drunk the water laced with agent orange and a host of other chemicals, which would give him cancer when he was 69 - not the one he's dying from, that's asbestos lung, which he got after he was cured from the non-hodgkins. For a man who lived a healthy life and should have had another twenty years, that sucks.

Mum said she knew he was the one when he put her arm around her at a party. They used to drive down the coast in his FC Holden and have beach picnics.

It's funny how you see a marriage as a kid. I always felt sorry for Mum, because she was always at home looking after us and cooking and cleaning whilst Dad was either working or at the beach. Mum was absolutely a surfer's widow. Dad was always kiteboarding, surfing, windsurfing or stand up paddle boarding. 'Where's Dad' we would say, and of course the answer would be 'at the point' or 'surfing somewhere'. She never minded though. That was just my view.

Mum was quite indignantly feminist in a marriage where her husband left the vast amount of the housework to her. Except that probably wasn't the entire story - Dad would do the vacuuming if asks and did a lot of work in the garden, and besides, he had his own business and worked full time. Later, in my own marriage, I'd find myself saying 'why don't you sit down, I'll do the washing up', because gender roles sometimes are just the way you get through life. I ain't building the back deck, but I can make cake and tea, just like Mum did.

Mum and Dad, Spain, about 15 years ago.

The two of them were perfect parents, especially in contrast to my uncle and aunty, who raised a hell of a kid who grew up to be a right prick and now, his wife having left him and his four kids not talking to him, he still lives in their house and they support him. That's not anything my parents would tolerate. My cousin, as a kid, ran wild - as an only boy, they put him on a pedestal, something my folks felt a lot of contempt about. They were always firm and strict, but also loving. They were the same people in many ways - high moral standards, sensible and rational, health conscious. I don't think they ever really argued about the big things. They were pretty aligned.

I think when you marry that young you raise each other. You're still growing up, but if you can grow together, your marriage is going to work. My parents always talked to each other about their problems. My Dad's always been open and soft, though he's not at all demonstrative - you don't get hugs from my folks - but he's always talked to Mum when he's going through life issues. That's only something I realised much later on, probably only in the last few years - that my folks were really tight. There's a whole marriage that goes on with us kids around to see it.

And damn, he was a great father. He'd always be back to tuck us in or bath us, he knew how to be silly and they'd always take us out to do stuff. Being a family was important. We all just got along and I think it was because they were just so solid. I don't think it's any suprise I have this wonderful marriage - I had great role models, and certainly Dad was someone I looked up to so much that I'd never have settled for anyone else. I've always chosen very loyal, steadfast, hard working men.

Family life, '70's Australia.

I always felt kinda sad that Dad never vocalised or demonstrated appreciation for Mum in the way I wanted in my own marriage (and I'd get, because I had such high expectations). He didn't hold her hand or tell her he loved her. He didn't bring her flowers. I mean, she did a lot, but I always felt he could have said. It's the way he was raised, I suppose, that he didn't. Later I'd realise that there were other ways to support someone. To demonstrate love. Still, to see Mum in tears when he started saying really, really loving and appreciative things in the last few years showed me that she probably would have liked that a little more.

On the flip side, Mum adored Dad - I always vowed I'd never be so dependent. She never had a life outside of him - and that worries me now, because she is facing life without him. But then, that was just her. I don't need more than Jamie either. You become each other's best friend - why do you need anyone else?

He did love her deeply. He always says he would have been dead years ago without her care - she's an awesome nurse and carer. Being so ill makes you vulnerable. Now if she leaves the house for ten minutes he's asking 'where's Mum, when's Mum coming back?' like a child. The first time I saw Dad cry I was 14 and Mum had been in a serious car accident. Isn't it wierd that you can think certain things about a relationship and then find out it's anything but?

My folks, a month or so ago.

We hit 20 years last month, in our marriage. We sat around joking about it, as you do. 'You get less for murder' is the usual one. Mum said 'you know, I never found it that hard. The worst thing is that you don't get long enough', and burst into tears. You have to think about these things in a marriage. You can argue about the silliness things but you never know when you're going to lose the love of your life.

This post was written about a week or so before Dad died. It was for the theme for Memoir Monday, an initiative by @ericvancewalton. I had forgotten to post it, then he died and the moment truly passed. On the 26th it'll be a month - we picked up his ashes yesterday. Mum's doing okay. She's sad of course but diligent about going on with living. It's hard to grief alone. She keeps wanting to tell Dad things that happened with her day. She misses him terribly, as we all do.

The day he died, she held his hand a very long time. In the first moments she looked at me, a beautiful visage of grief and vulnerability.

'Oh Mum,' I said. 'How lucky you were to have such a long and happy life together".*

Still, it's unfair she is now on her own. She talks about him a lot. We all do. It's still Mum and Dads house, though his presence there is slowly fading. She's getting through all the death admin slowly. She cries and gets on with it. All his shoes are already in bags by the back door, ready to take to charity shops or give away. Ever practical my Mum. But shoes don't talk about the presence of a husband now absent. There's a whole life time of memories keeping her awake at 4 am..

With Love,

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