Loss

 On the 1st of May, the five crepe myrtles were beautifully autumnal:

A week later those lovely red leaves are gone:

 In May six years ago I lost my two old dogs, and wrote a blog post for each of them to mark the losses.

 

On the 1st of May this year, my father died. It is much harder to write a blog post about this loss.

 

My father was born in July, 1929. His family celebrated his birthday on the 12th, although his birth certificate said he was born on the 13th. He was the youngest of eight children. One sister, who turned 96 last month, survives him.

Mum and Dad married in March 1956:

I posted about their 65th anniversary in March, when it seemed Mum might not be with us for long. Dad dying first was completely unexpected.

Here's a photo I found of them from 11 years ago, on 9th May 2010:

 

They were in their early 80s, and in good health. It is nice to remember them like this.

My relationship with my father was complicated. We had opposite opinions on just about everything. We were not really able to sit and have a conversation. 

 

For his 80th birthday, I made him this quilt:

Photo taken before the binding was quite sewn down. I must have finished it in the car on the way to visit him, as this photo was taken on the morning of 12th July, 2009. Each block is about things that were important to Dad. 

Top left: Snooker layout. The "balls" are appliqued circles. Dad enjoyed snooker, although in recent years in the retirement village he swapped to pool. He played pool every afternoon, and it is what he was doing when he collapsed unconscious on 24th April, as a result of a hemorrhagic stroke.

Top middle: Hard to see here, but it is the badge on a Peugeot 203, Dad's first car.

Top right: A cross, to represent Dad's religious faith.

Middle left: Crosswords. Dad did The Age cryptic crossword daily. In recent years he stopped buying that paper, but someone scanned the puzzle and emailed it to him every day.

Centre block: Royal Australian Air Force. Dad was a member for 22 years. I paper-pieced the kangaroo, then pieced the circular surrounds.

Middle right: Dad was a radio technician, and this is a circuit diagram that I found online and traced onto the fabric with a permanent marker. It is quilted with the letters "QSL", (Wikipedia explanation.)

Bottom left: Essendon football club colours.

Bottom middle: Represents Dad's time in Japan while in the Air Force. The fabric features cherry blossoms, and it is quilted with an outline of the Kintai Bridge in Iwakuni, which opened after reconstruction during his time stationed there.

Bottom right: Dad was a prolific writer of letters to the editor. I have been asked many times, "Are you related to that guy who writes to the paper all the time?"

 

Of course, these were my ideas of what was important to my father; he had no input into it. However I think Dad was happy with it, because he used the lap quilt all the time, all year round. It has only occurred to me now, after all this time, that I never considered dedicating a block to his family.