Remembering Daddy

It's been roughly a year and a half since my dad passed. That was after 4 months of end-stage cancer. I've had lots of time to analyse and bring closure to the wonderfully complex relationship I had with him.

I haven't.

Instead, I've been remembering the things I loved about Harold Walton.

• Daddy had a KILLER sense of humour. Whenever I remember him, I remember a broad grin and booming, roaring laughter... that usually followed some joke at someone's expense. His conversations with Mummy were a particularly rich source of entertainment. Here's one of my favourites:

Mummy: Harold, what time is it?

Daddy: Ten to!

Mummy: Ten to what?

Daddy: Tend to yuh own BUSINESS!!!

• Daddy had a BEAUTIFUL tenor voice. And he was ALWAYS singing - a real chirper. He could harmonize on a dime. In fact, when I was a little girl, we did that all the time... we'd sing all kinds of songs together, and take turns singing the harmony. He took pride in the fact that I could sing, and would often embarrass me by commanding me to sing the high notes of "Handel's Messiah" for visitors. And during the last year of his life, he fretted that his high notes weren't quite up to scratch.

• Daddy was a bookworm. If he was quiet, the most likely reason was that his nose was buried in a book. Whether political works written by Norman Manley, or gun-toting fiction by Louis L'Amour, or the latest issue of Reader's Digest... If it could be read, Daddy was reading it. That's where he got all his 3-syllable words from... and that's how he indulged his love of language. He would often throw out some fancy word in casual conversation... like "circumnavigate"... then pause, pat himself on the back, and say, "Big wud Harold, big wud."

• The second most likely reason for Daddy being quiet, would have been that he was plotting mischief. Daddy was a prankster, and my poor mother got the brunt of it. One of his most memorable pranks: Daddy's home sick, sleeping late, and Mummy's rushing off to work... but can't find her shoes. She searches everywhere to no avail. It suddenly strikes her that Daddy's snores sound slightly staged. She shakes him. He grunts sleepily. She pushes him away from his pillow, which she lifts off the bed... and there, wrapped in newspaper and plastic bags, are Mummy's shoes.

• This part of my Dad I know the least - he was a born leader. At home he was easygoing, laidback. At work, apparently, he was an innovator, a mentor, a leader who was always ready to teach and was un-selfconscious about his own brilliance. He was a career policeman, always stationed in rural parts, and I never saw Daddy in uniform, never experienced him at work. But at his memorial service, so many of his colleagues came forward to paint the picture of a man who was universally admired. I came away from that funeral with renewed respect for my father.

Dad, the memories of you are as brilliant today as they have ever been. You are, and always have been, loved.