my Dad told me he loved me......

We have never been an overly affectionate family (I believe it is the Scottish in us). My friends know me as the person that is hardest to show affection to. For me this is tough, because I have always craved the affection (but never known how to show it), but then again, being the youngest, I have always been a little different from my 3 sisters and my brother in that way. I have always conformed as that is what I was always used to.
In some ways I have always been jealous of my siblings,they all got to spend time together going on family trips and spending quality time with each other. In other ways, being so much younger than my siblings, I was thankful for the time I got to spend with my parents alone. As this is about my Dad, I'll talk about the times with him. Any moment he had spare he spent with me. Every Thursday night, we used to go to Morley shopping centre (pre Galleria) and buy scratchie lotto tickets, it was our thing. If he had a saturday morning off (he worked a lot)we would go into the city and just walk around and always come home with hot cinnamon doughnuts (ah the simple things!).
Dad and I clashed a lot when I was in my late teens and early 20s, but we both always knew that these 'clashes;' were because we were so similar. We could both be very 'hot tempered', stubborn and opinionated! It just seemed normal that we would butt heads!
Fast forward to when I was in my late twenties and i remember my mum had been rushed to hospital for D.V.T and that night, as Dad and I had dinner together, he told me he loved me and he told me all the things that he hoped i would achieve in my life. In a family that doesn't actually use the words 'i love you' often, this conversation will always be in my memory.
Over the last few years I learnt so much about my Dad. He opened up about things from his past that he never would have told me about. I will always be thankful for the insight into his life.

On Friday August 26th 2011, my Dad passed away. After nearly 3 weeks of being unconscious after having a stroke on a holiday in Scotland, his body decided that enough was enough. Everyone keeps saying the world lost a true gentleman (I absolutely love this description). All I know is that, last Friday, my mum lost her soulmate and I lost my Dad.

Until next time,
the last single 35yr old woman.

(maybe not the most upbeat of blogs but I can only write from the heart)