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THE QUIET MAN.
By Faye

He was eighty-five and still did not need glasses. After a lifetime of hard, physical work his greatest pleasure in life was to sit and enjoy the warmth of the sun. He had his favourite chair. Even in the winter he would snatch a few hours in his patch of sunlight. He ate his lunch outside. Sometimes he would doze a little but he always denied falling asleep.

This quiet man had few friends but he was well-liked by everyone who had the privilege of making his acquaintance. A man of few words. He spoke when there was something worth saying, otherwise he kept his counsel and said nothing. He was, above all, a gentleman. And a gentle man. I never heard him to say anything unkind about anyone. He was of the old school and believed that women belonged in the home, looking after children and doing the housework. Men went to work to make money for the family.

He could be lonely at times and missed the company of his dear wife. Even though there were children around him most of the time you could tell he needed a special someone just for himself. His brother came often and they would sit outside over strong, black, sugarless cups of tea and talk sport and politics for ages. He was passionately Labour.

He hated the thought of being a burden to anyone and tried to be as helpful as he could, but his idea of cooking was archaic to say the least. Everything cooked to death hours before mealtimes and meat done to a crisp in a good hot oven so he had to be stopped from “just getting things started”. He was there to bring in the washing when winter nights came early or when a sudden shower of rain descended. He was good at peeling the spuds and washing vegetables, just so long as he resisted the urge to cook them.

The children loved him. He was their constant, always around after school. He rarely went anywhere so it was a given that he would be home to greet them and keep an eye on them before Mum came home from work.

He was careless of his health and would never admit that he was getting older. When he was eighty he broke both his wrists falling from a ladder, “just doing a bit of pruning.”. A year later he had to be dragged off to the doctors, not quite kicking and screaming, but certainly protesting all the way, to get a tetanus shot after he cut his hand badly on some buried glass. He had the grace to look sheepish when the nurse told him, in no uncertain terms, just what it was like to die of tetanus. When the crazy dog who was his companion, but which we hated, bit him, he had a booster shot without a whimper and the dog was put down.

He developed bronchitis and flatly refused to go to the doctor again. What he didn’t know, and would not let anyone else know, was that he was suffering from congestive heart failure. His ankles were badly swollen. We found him one afternoon, dead in his chair, the paper on the floor with black headlines proclaiming the stock market crash of October 1988. The doctor came and said, “Did he have a lot of money invested?” I almost laughed. He had no ambition to be rich; he only wanted to leave his children a small sum of money. He didn’t even spend money, not on himself and he had very little idea of the value of goods.

The children were shocked by his death and saddened too. He had been living with them for fifteen years and he was an integral part of the family.

This quiet gentleman, who was such an important part of our lives, was my father. He died as he lived – quietly and without making any fuss. Maybe the doctors could have extended his life had he gone to them earlier, but I think this was what he wanted. He would have hated the whole business of doctor’s visits and check-ups and examinations. He was such a private person. He was my Dad.

THE END.

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