At last count, dad had about three or four iPods, in varying models. He never quite seemed to grasp the concept that once it was full of songs you could simply update it with new songs, so I guess he bought a new one each time. They collected in a pile of shamefully defunct, misused technology. He loved his music and would play it at volumes, often bordering on obnoxious. He has one of those portable players and – despite having it often within arms reach – he would use the mini remote control to turn the volume up. Mid conversation, no big deal. “You must listen to this excellent song about a Combine Harvester” cranks up volume “Ok, Dad. Ok!”

Two weeks ago today, at almost the exact time, I stood at the very spot that this picture was taken – in a park I often pass on my way home from work. It’s on a hill and is very beautiful.

Two weeks ago today, we were deeper into winter and the sky was not playful or pink. It was dark and full of twinkly unknowns and glimmery shadows. It was dark, and I sobbed. I only stood because I had someone to hold me. I was not ready to hear the saddest words I thought I could never process. I am still trying.

In another two weeks the sky will be even brighter at that time of night and winter will be faster asleep under the slow creeping blanket of spring. And I will have had another fortnight of memory to digest and smile. Time really doesn’t give you a choice, you either keep smiling or not.

If nothing else, the only good I can see out of all of this battery-draining, awful-numbing loss is the realization that I want to write. The whirlwind of emotions in the entire experience set me adrift in a place, where at times the only peace and solace I found, was in its documentation. I found stability in laying the words out in order, instead of having them bouncing around, behind my eyes and making mud out of my thoughts. Perhaps this has been the impetus for me to finally acknowledge that, I love words. I wake up to them attacking me, flapping tiny velvety wings. “Wake up, we want to dance.”

One of the things that froze and splintered my heart the most was when Trudy cried that her boys will not remember him. I told her that I am going to write them books about the Story of Gramps; his adventures are too grand and too many not to be penned. Books that will make his grand-babies know and remember, even if they don’t. They will. I don’t want anyone to forget him, even people he never met and the lives he never touched.

If you have any stories about him or thoughts, or words, winks, nods, smiles to share. Email them to me (allofthecannons@gmail.com) and I promise he will never be forgotten. It is an easy promise to vow to not let the impossible happen. How could he ever be forgotten?

Perhaps I will start another blog of my own; where I can devote full-time dedication to making fun of Trudy… or examining the direct correlation between the sound of a child screaming and me wanting to pour another glass of wine… or ligers, nobody talks about ligers enough. Or Trudy posing with ligers, the possibilities are totally endless, but I digress…

In any event, I would like to extend the deepest most honest thank you, to you all for sharing this journey with us so far. I might not update this blog everyday and with as much frequency, but I am going to write it all down, and press it then to paper into a book to read, read, read. Because this is all for my dad, it always was and always will be.

I love you, dad.

Hi Tracy,

As you can see i have attached several photos of our gathering to celebrate the life and friendship of Jim Craig. All the people in these pictures enjoyed a long and happy friendship with your dad Jim here in the UK. We are only a small portion of people that he met along his extraordinary life. We all met at The Upton Inn-as this was a favorite haunt of Jim’s when we were all younger- and it coincided with your own celebration in Trinidad.

I worked at Fry’s chocolate factory with him as an engineering apprentices of which there are many happy memories. We all loved being with Jim,as life was always an adventure especially when on our holidays. If you wish to add any of the photos to your internet blog please feel free as we are all in agreeance.

I hope that Jim’s unique email address is still in use-perhaps to communicate with Kareen in the future. Over the years i have sent many older photos to your dad which he may have saved-let me know-as i can repeat and add to these if you like. THANK YOU for your internet blog which has kept us all informed throughout. Please share this email with Kareen and Trudy as we all wished to be remembered to them. We send our love to you all. 

Here’s to the next meeting

Donald & Judith x 

and the rest of the gang.

We will all celebrate him silently and out loud, in our hearts and in our laughter. We said a final farewell yesterday and put him to rest, around his home, with an explosive send off that he would have loved every last bit of. It was perfect.

I think we have all felt something very special with and around us all, since he left. Whether it is simple energy, constant thoughts, love, light or just another symptom of our grief to make the memories and past joy resonate as being that much sweeter. We filmed the cannon being fired and before the ignition was even lit, Alex noticed a flashing glow across the base of the screen in the slowed down replay of the video. Science and logic can throw around words like simple tricks of light or a technical video artefacts, but the unexplained made us relish how little we really know for sure, and perhaps somewhere and somehow he was there with us, saying “hi”.

Jim was the patriarch of this family, and his ashes were scattered all over the property he made into a home. With love from the hands of the people and the many lives he helped to shape along the way. We all turn back to dust and the humbling reality of that makes me want to try to be the best human I can be, and try to obliterate everything tedious in life that doesn’t directly facilitate that.

I left, again today – from swelter back to snow, it is -20c here today and my skin is on strike – back to my life that feels like it’s been on pause since my phone rang around 10:30am on Tuesday, November 26th, 2013. My sister’s voice on the other end of the line, saying the words that nobody ever wants to hear, in a call that should never have had to been dialled; “Dad has been in accident.” The most insane and reality negating ride started for us all that morning. Words can change everything too quickly.

I have tried, for my sanity, to chronicle much of it on here in this blog; but in truth the savage unfairness of the whole situation is not something that I can apply logic to, and I probably never will. The inner conflict of goodbye seems so much more pressing, since coming to terms over these past few months, with how very final we all potentially are. I am not sure when I will be back again, but the daily hi, hello, how are you, I love you, will be my new habit. We are not together but are never really apart.

Trudy is left with the task of continuing life and family, while learning to make all this unfamiliar fit back into everything that looks exactly the same. The plants, the dogs, the fish, the grass, the house, the pool, his orchids, are constantly hungry for attention. She waters his orchids and her cheeks, every morning. It’s going to be the little mundane daily tasks that sting with the reminders of loss. He loved his orchids and they loved him.

Mum is left with a same but different house. I hope that seeing him in every detail – some way more ridiculous than others (hey there, train track installed around the verandah ) – will fill her eventually with peace and happiness. I can’t imagine losing a life long love, it must take a rocket-ship of strength to make good out of all the bad. Luckily she is a woman blessed with the strength and support of a fleet of rockets. NASA and the entire Russian space program could learn a thing or two from her. To the moon and back, mum. To the moon.

It stands at about 10″ high, is the circumference of a small, misshapen watermelon and is very deceptively heavy. I can’t imagine the ‘ashes’ themselves would be of any significant weight, so I blame the heaviness on the clay urn; but for now it is sealed, so I can’t be too sure just yet. The temptation to take the lid off and tip the contents out onto the lawn, in order to do a proper scientific weight comparison was almost too overwhelming, so I put it away, far from my morbid need to investigate further. I can’t imagine the rest of the family would be too pleased to find that I had dumped Jim out onto the front lawn just to ascertain why the whole package was the weight of a grossly overfed lap dog.

Perhaps I will have to write a strongly worded letter to the funeral home to point out that they might want to consider using a lighter receptacle in the future, as the recently bereaved are not renowned for their strength and weight lifting capabilities.

Dad’s wish, of course, is to have his ashes shot out of the cannon. The logistics and practical execution of this all is still a bit of mystery to us, and I keep pointing out that it might be a bit tricky to not have the entire cloud engulfed in a gust of wind and blown back into the house and… onto all of us. I can’t imagine Jim would have found anything more hilariously satisfying than to see us all scampering so as not to be cloaked in ‘dust’. I am going to make sure I stand behind Trudy, just in case.

This was the cannon explosion from his life celebration party last week Saturday. To have this sort of ridiculousness as one of your life legacies, in my humble opinion, is a life well lived.

Ashes to ashes, dust to…cannon explosions.
Well played dad, well played.

We have collectively busied ourselves as a family this past week. The sliding scale of emotion has ridden a range of peaks and valleys, that I have personally never experienced before. I am slowly learning that, that’s ok.

If I learned only one thing from my dad, it was to be flexible and open to change and to never stop trying at anything, ever.

I woke up yesterday morning heavy and forgetful of how to feel, like all healing and positivity had somehow evaporated as I slept and empty had crept back in. I am realising, that this is the most poisonous part of this cycle, because it’s so easy to recall and ponder all the buoyant bulbs of everything sad in this ocean.

Yet the universe (or insert appropriate descriptor here), is so good and we are all so blessed; within a few minutes my phone buzzed and my cousin, Alex – who is an absolute floodlight of sugary magical love rays- texted me the below observation and definition of hummingbirds.

The buoyant sadness bulbs will still float, but it was easier for me to see that hummingbirds have wings and can help us fly. We just have to keep our hearts and eyes wide open.

This morning I’ve been on hope cottage balcony enjoying the sounds and view. There are so many hummingbirds, so I decided to google the meaning of hummingbirds … Because why not … And the definition reminded me exactly of Jim

Below are all of the beautiful words submitted, to be read at the service by Jim’s friends and family. Love, love, love.

[Read by Trudy & Tracy, for our dad]
We will think about you everyday and when these lumps of painful sadness finally melt, a sunrise of memories will radiate; with every amazing thing about you. And we can smile at every memory, because you made sure we learned that happiness will always crumble sorrow. Life is joy and full if you are open to it.

Your passion for the ridiculous will never fade and I am sorry your plan for our family to sail around the world failed because Trudy cried and I vomited all the way up the islands on the test voyage. Mum you really are a patient soul to put up with all of our collective shenanigans. So instead we would camp as a family – in a green army tent the size of a small village – on the beach in Tobago for weeks at a time, while you windsurfed daily and we ate from massive pots of stew you concocted. So many of those salty, sandy, sun-kissed memories linger with me to this day.

You are the most astoundingly superb dad we could ever have. Through the amazing parents that you and Mum were, we learned the values of an open home, open heart and open mind and the power of never being too proud to say sorry. Because of you, we know the powers of love and family transcend everything. Time in this life is a drop in the bucket of eternity and I will never feel alone again because you are here, everywhere and always.

We will strive to be the kind of parents and humans that you both taught us to be. We learnt the seamless transition of parental love and support that blossomed into friendship now that we are adults. You are easily one of the best friends Trudy and I ever had, and without doubt you were certainly the most brightly dressed of them.

We can never thank you enough for everything you taught us and we can only continue your honour by mirroring your passion for life, adventure, challenges, generosity, fun and humour. Your sense of humour, for good or bad is our humour. I would like to read a poem that dad taught us when we were both very young. Here it goes:

A little fly flew past my door, and flew into the grocery store,
He pooed on the ham, and peed on the jam,
and wiped his bum in the grocery man.

We love you larger than all the universes in our universe. This feels too soon to ever say goodbye properly, but one hundred more lifetimes with you would not be enough; so instead we will say farewell, until next time. Nothing ends it just goes on in another way. We will love you forever and ever and ever and back again. Twice.

[Read by Lorna, for her brother]
Being Jim’s little sister, I’ve got a lifetime of stories about him.  We were so fortunate to have a really happy childhood in the home Mum and Dad created just before the Second World War – Tamarisk, Golden Valley in the village of Bitton, squeezed between Bristol and Bath.  A welcoming place where, like Esperanza Alta, friends and family just popped in, ate us out of house and home and we laughed a lot.  That’s where and from whom Jim learnt the art of hospitality and generosity.

Apparently, he was very protective of me when I was a baby, guarding the pram outside the Post Office.  Didn’t last long though – he would always beat the stuffing out of me in our pillow fights – and I’d come back for more.  Mum used to tell the story of young Jim being told off once – he was very naughty, of course – and she watched him stomp up the road, turn round and mutter, ‘you horrible house’.

But he was very community-minded.  One day the primary school teacher met Mum in the shop and she thanked her for the Christmas tree.  ‘What Christmas tree?’ she asked.  Jim had only dug up one of the newly-planted fir trees at the bottom of the garden and dragged it to school.  When challenged, he said, ‘well, you’ve got plenty of others!’

If you’d met Mum, Queenie to most of you, you’d know where Jim got his wicked sense of humour from but he seemed to develop it to a whole new level.  If you knew Dad, you’d know where he got his love of making things and getting things working.  It’s my theory that the American jeep he restored one bitterly cold winter was when that vile disease crept into his bones.  It may have been that same winter, 1963, when Jim welded together his own snow plough and offered his services to the local council to clear our little country lanes of humungous snow drifts.  He’d have an idea and put it into action.

The most painful time for us as a family was when Jim first sailed single-handed across the Atlantic.  It was a long and silent wait in those days – no modern technology – 30 days – until we had a phone call from Barbados – ‘I have a caller for you’, said the telephone operator – and then, ‘oh, sorry, he’s got back to his yacht in the lagoon’.  What a relief though.  And the Caribbean became his adopted home, where his peculiar approach to life fitted in just perfectly, aided and abetted by Kareen, of course.  His roots never completely dried up though and he needed his British fix of his old friends and family most years.  In fact, all his old mates are meeting right now in the Upton Inn to raise a glass to Jim – he’d like that.  I remember a couple of years ago he was so insistent on walking on a North Cornwall beach and clifftop, where Dad had been born and where we had many family holidays.

Of late, we did have a few, just a few, serious conversations about life.  He knew he had lived life to the full, was more than content with his lot and valued all of his family and friends.  He just needed to shout at you to tell you that.  Even in hospital unable to voice his words, you knew when he was shouting at you by the expression on his face.

I’m so proud to have been his sister – I can just see that unique grin spreading over his face now, embarrassed but darned pleased too.

[From Jim Cross, for his friend]
read by his nephew, Glen Beadon
I first met Jim when he was an apprentice in about 1962 at Fry’s Chocolate Factory, where we became good friends. We decided to do spare time work together and bought a bulldozer and did several weeks’ work in the woods at Dyrham Park Estate. Soon after we both bought an American Jeep each, and had great fun in the winter on the snow & ice.

Later we decided to go into partnership and between us built a factory ourselves at the bottom of our garden – after sacking the two guys we contracted to build it as the workmanship was so bad – after two days’ construction we pulled it down, and built it ourselves.  We then bought machinery and equipment to make JCB digger buckets, and general machining.  As the business grew we employed several staff and formed a limited company in 1968, appropriately named JC Engineering Ltd.

After a couple of years or so, Jim got the wanderlust and went as a crew member on a yacht going to the Bahamas.  Jim returned to UK after a couple of months, came back to JC Engineering for about a year and decided that engineering wasn’t for him.

He then bought his first boat Peter Rabbit and sailed across the Atlantic single handed.
In the early eighties Jim took delivery of a new boat Baby Breeze.  It was moored in Helford Passage where we stayed on it overnight and had lots of fun and laughs.  Later in the year Jim and Dave Williams sailed it to Villa Mora in Portugal for the winter. Jim came back to UK in the following February, visited us, and said that he and Dave were shortly going to sail Baby Breeze from Portugal to the Canary Islands and onto the West Indies. I mentioned that they needed an extra crew member and managed to get press ganged into joining them.

In March we went to Villa Mora and found the boat in a poor state, and after a few days and lots of maintenance, was ready to leave.

We left at 3pm on a glorious hot and sunny day, and at 8pm, the weather changed to rain and a force eight gale. By 10pm the boat was at heeling at about 30 degrees

Jim called out from below decks,  “water and diesel is swilling up and down the cabin floor.”  We found that the diesel tanks under the two rear bunks were badly leaking and the bilge pumps were not working. After sometime, we fixed the pumps, but due to the bad design and workmanship of the tanks, were impossible to repair.

The storm lasted 4 days but when it was over, there was no wind at all, so we started the engine and continued. After many engine breakdowns we arrived at 6am in the south of Grand Canary; all of us were knackered! Dave and I carried out lots of repairs to the boat, but after a few days had to return to UK.  Jim left on his own a week later and sailed across to the West Indies, and had a brilliant crossing.

Mona ( Ronnie ) and I, had a memorable holiday at Jim and Kareen’s in 1991, saw the carnival, met lots of their lovely friends and heard the cannon go off with a grapefruit inside; we’ve never heard a bang quite like it !
Jim has been a wonderful friend and will always be in our hearts, it has been a great privilege to have known him.

[From Alan Avent, for his friend]
read by his brother-in-law, Ted Baker

We will be with you this weekend in thoughts and prayers, but desperately sad not to be with you in person. The blog has warmed the hearts of many people and it has been a rare privilege to share this tragic experience with such a fabulous and incredibly close family.  Your Mum is no doubt very proud of the way you have all reacted in such a crisis.  I have said it once but I will say it again.  Behind every good man is a good woman.  Jim was very fortunate because he had three good women.

I have enclosed a postcard that David at some very tender age wrote to Mary’s Mum.  You will see that he mentions Jim.  Our kids worshipped him and looked forward to him coming to stay.  On one occasion he took them all down to the beach at Wembury.  He donned his wet suit and diving gear and then, to their amazement, proceeded to walkout to sea until he disappeared beneath the waves!!  They were horrified. Twenty minutes latter he reappeared unscathed, apart from two big blood shot eyes!  He had gone too deep and the pressure must have burst blood cells in his eyes.

When we lived in Bristol, he turned up one evening with a fire engine which he hadcut in half, shortened it and turned it into a breakdown lorry, complete with a crane.  When he was no age at all, about 18, he designed and built a grain dryer which worked so well that he sold it to a local farmer.  But I guess he was under15 years when he saved up and bought his first welding kit – twenty five pounds  out of the Exchange & Mart weekly magazine and with the help of a friendly farmer he started making farm gates.  In fact, he was always covered in grime and great, most of which found its way onto the carpet at Tamarisk!

When he was still very young, he went into partnership with Jim Cross – and what a partnership.  They could do anything – and did.

I am so pleased that Tracy paid tribute to Jim’s double Atlantic crossing.  Jim listened to Mary and I yapping on endlessly about sailing and some of our trips.  Harry (his Dad), was incredibly knowledgeable about the practicalities of seamanship and sailing but was plagued, as was Jim, with acute seasickness.  This is a terrible, terrible handicap, not to be under-estimated.  After endless conversations, often well into the night, it was obvious he was not only set on crossing the Atlantic – BUT SINGLE-HANDED!

He found the perfect boat – ‘Peter Rabbit’ –and we had lots of fun around Falmouth to give Jim a chance to get to know the boat.  Then he disappeared and the next we knew he was in Trini.  Read his log and you will see that he had a rough time but not enough to put him off doing the same again some years later in ‘Baby Breeze’.  Again, he generally shared ‘Baby Breeze’ and many of his friends enjoyed some great sailing around Falmouth before he set off again.

I have been compiling a list of the words that best describe Jim’s life – I daresay Kareen could add a few more, and will .  My list would start with humour, fun, generosity, modesty and humility.  These are the things I loved him for – yes, loved him – like the brother I never had.

Time and distance never made the slightest difference.  We could always pick up where we left off.  It’s comforting to remember that Jim, Kareen and friends were here the very day we moved into this new home.  The timing was perfect.  We were in, the panic over, the sun was shining and we could all sit outside around the table we had shared so many times before and enjoy a glass of wine.

We will be with you on Saturday.  Our love and kindest thoughts to you all.

[From Wendy James, for her friend]
read by his sister, Lorna Baker
This is a tribute to Jirimmy from Werendy – stupid names but typical of Jim.

Jim and my late husband Tone were friends for years starting at Bath Technical College where Jim was making steam engine components for the Bishop of Bath and Wells, – and Kareen nursed me in hospital.  Between them, Jim and Kareen brought us together – and we went around as a foursome as our friendship grew.  They were brilliant matchmakers.

Eventually, we planned our wedding for December 1974.  Jim became very disgruntled by this fact – that we were going to tie the knot before him and Kareen.  He said ‘we can’t let these blank blank blanks get there before us”. Before we knew it, they’d booked a date in November – but because it was such short notice, they could only hold their reception in a friendly farmer’s cowshed.  That meant we all had to muck in –  literally – to clean it out, whitewash it, hang ivy decorations and hire space heaters to dry and warm the shed through – and this was just a week before their wedding date.  All because he had to get there before we did.  Typical!

Not only was Jim stoical on his final journey but that’s how he lived life. You’ve left a huge void in my life, Jim.  Even though the miles separated us, I never felt you were that far away, such was your strength of character.  A free spirit guided by a zest for life led to a colourful personality – and an ability to fall asleep at the liveliest of parties.  Your qualities of openness, honesty and fun made you a very lovable, likeable friend.  Thank you, Jim.  I will miss you for ever. I love you more than you will ever know.

Happy Sailing ……

[From Charles Brash, for his friend]
I always thought my father was the best.  Five years after he passed I met someone who gave him serious competition.  Enter Jim Craig.  They both had the art of using the most profane words of the English language and making them sound like beautiful poetry with excerpts of music from the Swan Lake ballet.

Forty years ago during a visit to a friend’s home at La Brea my wife and I noticed some thing sitting in the corner of the living room.  It was very white and dressed in a navy blue turtle necked warm weather top and shivering.  It had recently crossed the mighty Atlantic and was obviously lost.  My wife, a Christian woman and a do-gooder turned to me and said ‘We have to help this person.  He seems nice enough but desperately in need of salvation.’

There was a project in a remote area with which nobody wanted to get involved – Matura.  The next morning my wife and I drove north and collected Jim and Kareen outside Kay Donna drive-in cinema.  Located on the 300 hundred acre property was a partial mud hut/thatched roof manger type dwelling.  As I recall, they moved in immediately.  We said goodbye and assumed we would not see them again for some time.  NOT SO!

The project involved the extraction of gravel from the lagoon for use in oil wells.  Jim soon changed that to manufacturing concrete blocks using Meluja from the estate.  I discovered the genius in the man when he erected the block plant using a fork lift and joint of a drill pipe.

As time went by Jim continued to support his family using his wit, innovation and honesty.  He was an ideas man.

His thrift and his love for colour and patterns is exhibited by the shirts he wore, having purchased them in St Martin at RIMA, an Indian store.  Jim had a special price, three for #20. I will miss calling him at two or three a.m. from abroad during a drinking session.  Whenever I asked, ‘to whom do I speak ?’ his response would be, ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury’ or the colourful language referred to earlier.

I could go on and on as can most of you so I will end by saying ‘God bless you, brother.  May His eternal light shine down on you and may you be with Him this day in Paradise.’

I have been struggling to find the right way to sufficiently extend the words Thank You to everyone, near and far, who showed our family love and support yesterday. But the resounding thing that struck me was that Jim also felt like family to every single one of you too. Through all the stories, the love and the heart ache, it was so radiantly obvious how much he touched all of our lives in such a profound way. So the Thank You is really from us all to him; Thank You, Jim, (Husband, Brother, Father, Uncle, Friend) thank you for existing and making our lives better, happier, larger and so very much sweeter. Thank you to everyone who lugged a cooler up the hill, brought food to share, treats to eat, drinks to sip and love to charge abound though this house; that holds his memory in every crevice.  (Robbie, you are a tireless, magical creature, like a frigging golden unicorn-flying-pony who makes a killer clam and lobster chowder) We thought at one point the house might be crying, as the rain seemed to be falling off the roof edges on a beautiful crisp sunny day; but then soon realized that the irrigation system dad hooked up to drip down the roof eaves to cool the house had kicked in. (yup, in real life, this exists, that guy…)

The fiery inferno of sadness is cooled, even if temporarily, by closeness, hugs and the sweet words “I am so sorry, I love you.” And yesterday was most certainly another world record broken for hugging. I mean, I had to stretch and limber up at one point just to not get a repetitive strain injury in my shoulders.

I think we all knew from the moment we all got ready yesterday morning, that we could temporarily throw our tears to the floor and walk over them because we were all wearing his bright, Hawaiian shirts and the collective love would get us through an event, in a place that none of us wanted to go to. The 30 seater hired bus picked the family up at 8am and I think the bus driver likely wondered why this gregarious bunch of flashily dressed tourists wanted to ever be delivered to a crematorium. As a family, on a bus, all together we are a force of nature. I don’t think we even need a destination we could easily spend entire holidays just driving around in a bus.

The service needed to occupy two separate rooms (one with a live video feed) at the facility because so many people showed up, early on a Saturday morning, to say goodbye. So many people and so much love. Words and stories were sent to be read from some of my dad’s closest friends in England, (once I get permission from the authors, I will post them here to be shared).

Lorna, Ted, Glen and Trudy and I, all paid our tributes to him for the eulogy(s). Everyone single one was so amazingly heart-felt and full of every thing that was him. I managed to get through an astounding one paragraph of ours while Trudy read the rest of it. I blamed my red leaky eyes and wobbly voice on having been suffering from severe allergies…to Trudy. I am allergic to Trudy.

The service overall was perfect and dad would have been pretty thrilled with all of it. We put dirt on the top of the coffin in the shape of the cross and my shaky hands (or on purpose) made some extra fall out in a lump at the neck of the cross; I whispered to mum that the cross had a bumpy neck just like he did. We both giggled through our tears. He would have liked that quite a lot. I still flounder with the past and present tense when I think and talk about him. The finality of it all really seems to mock and surprise every time I think about it; I have too many questions to still ask him and wonder how the clawing feeling of never seeing him dance or tell another rubbish joke is ever going to feel less like a hot knife in butter, each time I forget to remember that he is gone. But happy memories don’t fade, they seem to be almost getting more vivid than even reality itself. Nothing can change or take that and we can smile.

A shamefully large percentage of this blog was written on my iPhone, one autocorrect that has plagued me from the start was ‘strong’ being incessantly changed to ‘string’ (every-damn-time) “he was so string” really packs a tiny fisted punch. The other, more recent one, was ‘funeral’ being changed to ‘fun reel’ perhaps it’s the way I type, but after yesterday I see now that perhaps that was more apt than not. That really was the most epic fun reel of a funeral ever. The love in the air was palpable. We laughed we cried, we danced, we ate, we drank, we hugged, we blew horns, we remembered, we made human pyramids (not sure why that happened) we shot cannons and we all paid our deepest most heartfelt honour to a man, who in his life made it so that a massive group of 100+ people would not have been anywhere other than celebrating him, in his home on a big green hill. Jim, we know you would have been so proud. We adore you.

Sitting on my parents bed, I look up to the empty hook screwed into the ceiling right above my dad’s pillow. Earlier this year he decided, after moving the bed around to yet another part of the room because – “it’s good energy to have your head facing this way” – he had quite hastily installed a massive solid glass pyramid into this hook because apparently this was also really “great for energy flow and life” We figured that a solid chunk of pointy edged glass was probably also “great for falling down and smashing onto someone’s sleeping head” So now it sits, far more securely, on his bedside table.

I see more and more clearly that his every (often ridiculously misguided) action and intention came from a place of creating happiness, good energy and joy. Our dad loves love.

This packed house is silent this morning. I think we are all afraid to whisper because we don’t want the finality of it all to be real. Perhaps if we all hide under the sheets and don’t get out of bed today we will never have to say goodbye and he will magically come back.

But instead of goodbye we know somewhere in our broken hearts that this is simply ‘farewell, until I see you again.’ Besides, my dad would never miss such an amazing party.

Arrived safely and already sweltering. Waiting for the next batch of family to flow in this afternoon and evening.

Trudy asked to clarify that Orange Grove is the turn off on the left after Johnson and Johnson (past Marketing & Distribution) when you turn off the highway follow the road and it is the big green building.

We will likely be back at the house anytime around noon, so pack up those coolers and head on over to laugh, cry, eat, drink and be merry in celebration of one of the most remarkable humans we all loved.

He may not be here to sing along around the fire, but his spirit will be in every note, flame and smile.