I've written four eulogies in my time, twenty-eight years ago for our son, ten years ago for my Mum, two years ago for my younger brother, and three weeks ago for my elder brother. Each one a unique agony of words. No wonder then I suppose that I accepted, after this last one, that I've become soul-weary, while grieving for those you love tends to lessen as the years go by and life goes on, the sadness is accumulative. I guess it's the price we pay for out-living our loved others, a price that some days feels just a little too high.
I expected that his own family would speak at his service of the the father and the grandfather they knew, but I realised that I was the only person left in the world who shared my brother's first 15-16 years, so I wrote about that, about the boy becoming a young man.I wish I could've shared this one last piece with him, as I did with so much of what I've written over the years, he being such a well-travelled and well-read and well-lived guy, who packed enough living into his 90 years for two lifetimes of anyone else, so he was always keen to see what came next, from my keyboard and from life in general.
More than once I said he should write his own story, but he accepted that he just didn't have the stickability, so he fed me a string of odd chunks, a couple of which I've blogged here in the past, but now I pray that I'll have the time to polish up some more of them, and put them out there in the world where they belong.
I know that we were closer as old men - wiser old men - than we ever were as kids Mick, but it was still a privilege to have shared this great journey with you.
Trev
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