Vicky Ewan: Goodbye to dad

For some months, until very recently, the cadence of my days was dominated by a steady rhythm - not one I had sought, but one that occurred quite organically, and came to mean a huge deal to me. 

My dad, who turned 89 this year, gradually began to succumb to the constraints of a degenerative disease in the spring. 

The symptoms, combined with the natural limitations of his advancing years, made him vulnerable to increasingly frequent falls, which eventually led to a hospital stay in the summer. Unfortunately, once he returned home, he was no longer mobile and was obliged to take to his bed. 

I had not anticipated this sudden and apparently irreversible shift in his fortunes; up until that point, he had been living independently, and it had been my habit to drop in two or three afternoons a week for a cuppa, and some undemanding afternoon television that we enjoyed watching together. 

We weren't fussy with our choices: snooker often featured, if there was a particular tournament being played out; we occasionally immersed ourselves in chateau renovation or the hunt for antiques; and we sometimes found ourselves stranded upon the African plains, caught up in the terrible beauty of the fight for survival in the wild. 

Fortified by tea and biscuits, we rarely felt the need to converse beyond daily pleasantries, but sat in companionable silence, lulled by the magic of the silver screen in miniature. 

My dad had never been one for idle chit-chat; my mum, infamously loquacious (a word I learnt from her), was happy to hold forth at length, with little expectation of fulsome response; her husband - save for the occasional interjection of an attentive ‘Oh’ at periodic intervals - listened more readily than he contributed. 

I imagine he missed the regularity of that dialogue after my mum died, nonetheless. Once he was bed-bound and becoming increasingly frail, with excellent carers having been appointed to take care of his needs, I began to attend my dad upstairs at home, sitting daily by his bedside with the mandatory cuppa after work, the pattern of my days freshly punctuated by these revised visits. 

Little else save the environment had changed: our televisual habits remained constant. It was the summer of the Olympics and the Paralympics, and we watched in awe as the world's finest athletes mesmerised their global audience with feats of incredible fortitude, speed, agility, and courage, marvelling at the level of skill on show. 

My dad, in particular, was fascinated by the seemingly gravity-defying exploits of the gymnastics teams - well, I think we all were, really. 

As time went on, and the symptoms of his illness intensified, holding him rigid in their cruel sway, I maximised these visits, spending hours at my dad's side. 

My brother, who had made the journey home from London frequently over the previous months, extended his trips, joining me to keep vigil over him. 

Sometimes watching television, sometimes listening to music, always supping tea, we flanked the bed, accompanied at varying times by other members of the family and by the diligent care staff, our conversations ebbing and flowing as our father's small form, latterly sedate in calm repose, lay between us. 

And then the day came when we were told he would not be with us for much longer. We gathered all the family members possible and pulled our chairs close to him, certain that, even in his deep slumber, he was aware of the love enveloping him from every corner of the room. After too short a while, with typical unobtrusiveness, my dad slipped from this earthly life and into the glorious rest of his eternal peace. 

It was, some would say, a happy release; it had been a dignified death. But what now? My days are no longer spent at his side; the rhythm is lost, its echo rings hollow. Yet I am so grateful for the time we had together: simple time, precious time. Time enough to love someone, and say goodbye.