In the light...

Yesterday I buried my father. That is not the literal truth; my father was cremated, not buried, and I certainly did not do that! But you get the point.
I have resisted writing about the death of my father until now because I thought you would find it (a) boring and (b) a solicitation for sympathy, when none was wanted nor needed.
The moment of death—and note here my refusal to use the euphemism “passing”, passing is what’s done in cars—was a relief and a release, not least for my father. His illness was long and cruel, particularly for a man for whom life was a banquet. He wanted to go. His reply to a caregiver in his last days was evidence of that. She asked him if he needed anything; he answered “a gun.”
As it was, his death was somewhat more sweet and serene. It happened just after he farewelled a woman who meant so much to him in his later years. And, if there is an afterlife, I believe there are enough people and dogs in it that knew Dad and would be there to welcome him. I think he knew that.
So, this Fryday is not about lamenting a lost father, though it stems from that, it is more about a lost love. At yesterday’s service I planned to read Dylan Thomas’s classic poem on the death of his father, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. It seemed apt and my favourite passage has all the power and intensity of a nail gun:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Old men, at close of day, should rage, rage
Against the dying of the light.
I love that passage but faced with the death of my own father I found myself questioning its veracity. What on earth was Thomas thinking when he wrote Do not go gentle…? Of course they should go gentle. My father did in that last tranquil moment. And the arrival of peace was I think a blessing. Did he “rage rage” against that arrival? No. He wanted to go. So he did. Simple. And I, at close of day, am thinking that my once favourite poem is, in the light of day, just a load of crap.


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