These past few weeks since Dad died have been difficult… grief is a difficult thing, but I’ve come to realise that grief is also a beautiful thing.
It comes in waves. Big waves and little waves. Some crash upon the beach and knock you over before being sucked back into the sea… others feel more like a gentle caress that laps the shore.
Within these waves are memories of our Dad. Every memory is like a luminous pearl made of joy, and sadness, perfectly balanced and bound together by Love. And that’s the best bit… because that Love is transcendent and eternal and so it connects us to our father forever.
We couldn’t have wished for a better Dad. He was really, really brilliant at being a father. He taught us everything we need to know and he taught not by telling us, but by showing us… and he continues to teach us now.
Grief is the hardest but possibly the most important lesson of all.
Dad’s light has gone out and, for now, life looks dimmer for it, but in our grief, I see now that even darkness can be beautiful, for without the darkness no light can shine.
So, in that sense Dad’s passing is an invitation for us all to shine even brighter in honour of him and the values he lived for. Love is the light that shines through everything he did in his life and that same Love lives within each of us.
Grief’s beauty connects us to him and the Love within that grief connects us all here today.
So, grief gives us every reason to be cheerful. Love’s light can never be extinguished, it’s simply passed on.
I can think of no better way for us to honour my father than to carry that light forward, to burn as brightly as we possibly can… and do Dad proud.
Thank you. Love to you all,
James.
