Remembering my dear old Dad

My sister Jenny writes: "It's hard to believe that today is the 10th anniversary of Dad's death." On this day, I am filled with loving memories. His spirit lives on.

In High Up in the Rolling Hills, I wrote:

Dad stayed in constant touch and kept right up to date on my latest. A year after a walk on Kinver Ridge to view his proposed resting place, it was time to visit Mum and Dad. Acutely aware of his vulnerability after several minor heart attacks, Dad had for a while been tying up loose ends, putting his affairs in order and making arrangements. I spent a week with them at their home in Bournville, in south Birmingham. This week, to be his last, was filled with bright, sunny days and cold, frosty nights. Dad was full of his usual mix of thoughtful musings and happy banter. He paid homage to the fallen ones throughout the week leading up to Remembrance Day. He made his usual care-giving calls to ailing friends and neighbours. He reviewed and updated the Finch and Mullins family histories, talking glowingly about his mother and father. He was thrilled to make the first sale of his poetry collection. He listened to the cricket on the radio. He revelled in Chopin nocturnes and Mozart piano concertos. He even burst into song more than once as he showed me his revised funeral service program.

The family enjoyed meals together. We picked and ate the last raspberries from the garden. We went for sunny walks in the park. My sisters and I reminisced about our childhoods, happy times for him and for us. Above all he was overjoyed to spend time with his closest family - his beloved Mary, his daughter Jill visiting from Berlin and me from Canada, daughter Jenny and her husband Bob, granddaughters Anna and Sarah, all of whom had been constantly close by for Jack and Mary in recent years. All of us were with him on what turned out to be his last evening. Just grandchildren Mieke and Janko and my wife, Gundi, were sadly not with us at this time.

Then, on a sunny afternoon stroll in the park with Jill, a massive heart attack struck him down and Dad suddenly took leave of us, a contented soul with an enlarged heart filled with love. His spirit will live on in all those that he touched with his humility and boundless love for people everywhere. His journey continued as he moved on to Kinver Edge, where the earth meets the heavens for him. From there, it was on to the great beyond. He had told me that death held no fear for him. He believed that it would reunite him with loved ones that had gone before.

A plaque on a bench up on Kinver Edge in memory of another departed one reads:

May the winds of love blow softly

On this quiet and peaceful place

Where our loved one

Will never be forgotten.