My father is 88 today. And, all things considered (which currently includes being in hospital with a broken hip), he is pretty well. When I was last home, he told a story about how he had come to visit me in my flat in Brussels in the 90s and as he was struggling up the hill (weak ankles, a family failing), a lady had come up to him and said, “Monsieur, you must sit down.” He felt obliged to and went into a bar where he felt very glum. He didn’t mention it to me at the time but the other day he said to me, “I felt it was like that Edith Sitwell poem ‘Cold Death had taken his first citadel‘”
But yet, be that as it may, here he is nearly 20 years later, still largely fine. And, oh so much like he ever was: he is a great man for steam trains and recently I texted him a picture of one I took in the National Photographic archive and he instantly texted back “Ballydehob Viaduct?” Quite right too.
I have to say, I didn’t really expect that when I was 44 and he was 88 my father would still know everything but so it is. And what is more, the older I get the more I realise that he is absolutely right about everything. I suppose it is only a question of time before I start to take the Telegraph.
Happy Birthday Daddy, and here’s to many more of them.
Your dad is 6 months younger than my mum. Thankfully, my mom is still going strong, as well. My dad turned 90 this past year. Alas, he is not in good shape. Nearly blind, practically deaf and very frail. Very hard to see a charming, intelligent, vital man wither away to a raisin of his former self. Enjoy your Dad while you’ve got him.
Clearly you don’t need to be told to cherish this. I miss my father hugely even five years after his death – he was only 67 when he had a post-op brain bleed (tumour removal) and died 18 months later without fully recovering. Apart from anything else he was such an interesting person and great to talk to. I often think of his proposed solution to the turf-cutting dispute, which was that those with turbary rights should be allowed to cut turf provided they did so in the traditional manner with sleans
My nieces have no grandfather at all which is a pity.
I hope to have the pleasure of my mother’s acuity for many years to come and the more time goes on the more I appreciate her wisdom.
WOL, Eimear, aren’t parents great, all the same? Doesn’t it seem inconceivable how awful they were at times during our teenage years?