As I mentioned in yesterday's post, today is the anniversary of my father's death. In the Catholic tradition we remember the deaths of our loved ones and remember them. So if you do pray please say a prayer for him today.
When I was a child I was always sent to bed at 9pm. By the time I was ten I would stay up reading for a while and then drop off to sleep. In those days I had a bedroom to myself so I was very happy about things.
One night I decided to go to the toliet before falling asleep. So I creeped along the landing to the toilet and relieved myself and when I opened the door to leave my father was standing there waiting for me.
He was standing a couple of stairs below the landing so that he was at head height to me. He took me in his arms kissed me on my forehead and told me that no matter what happens to me in the future that he always loved me.
I did think at the time that it was rather strange for him to tell me something like this, but I was more sleepy than anything else at the time so I just went to bed.
It would be the last time that I would ever see him alive. Later on that evening my father died in a car accident. As he was walking home from the pub he came across a broken down car, as he pushed it off the road another car went into the back of him. My father was killed instantly. I did wake up in the middle of the night in tears but after a while I got myself back to sleep.
The following morning I slept in. I would normally be up and about by eight, if I wasn't one of my sisters would wake me up. This morning that didn't happen.
When I roused myself and went down stairs I realised that something strange was going on. A few of my aunts and uncles were in the house cleaning it. Yes, we would be visited by random family members regularly (but not to clean), but not from both sides of the family at the same time.
I was marshalled up by one of the interchangable Margarets in my family, and sent with my younger sister to my Granny Doherty's house for the day. It wasn't until 4pm that my granny told me that my father had passed away.
I'm not a big fan of the occult. Yes, I've had my palm read a couple of times, but to be honest they weren't that accurate. But what happened the night before did seem to be strange.
Firstly, my father telling me that he loved me. My father wasn't one for spontaneous declarations of love. I can remember the look in his eyes when he spoke to me, it was of great sadness.
I could have dreamed the whole thing, or it could be a simple co-instantance but in the words of Jethro Gibbs "I don't believe in those". Or it could be that my father had a bad feeling. I'll never know.
Bye for now