In memory of my Dad:
My Dad Loved maths it was his passion.
Dad often remarked it wasn't that he didn't believe in god, just that the odds of his existence were vanishingly small and tended so close to zero as to not be significantly different. He also reckoned there was statistically speaking there was a greater chance that Jesus was the son of an alien than the son of god. I have wondered over the last 9 years whether my Dad was surprised at the end? All I know is this, if my Dad got a surprise then his maker got a shock!
People often said my Dad was one in a million, but my Dad was far more one in a million.
He was one in all the people are are, that have been as well as those that yet may be, my Dad was 1 in 13.5 Billion (give or take 10 million) and it is of comfort to me that as the time passes my Dad gets more unique.
My Dad was the height of a discontinued line, a one off and it was his view of life that made him so special.
If we were to view life as a journey then many would say that it is not where you start but where you finish that counts.
My Dad however, saw the world a little differently; he saw the world through his special tinted mathematics glasses. He believed it was how you got from A to B that mattered, the start and the finish were not as important as the path you took between the two.
He often said "The path from A to B is rarely a straight line love, (takes a smoke of his pipe, and wiggles his feet)......except in GCSE Maths, but that's a special case!".
It was my Dad's certain knowledge that there were multiple solutions or routes that you could take, that gave him the eyes to see the potential in everyone; He knew there was always more than one way of getting there and that most of them were valid. That is why my Dad always supported us whichever path we took.
My Dad saw maths everywhere and he lived his life by it, he:
Added to friendship and understanding
Subtracted sorrow and pain
Multiplied joy and happiness
and always left love undivided
After all as he always said, we are here to add what we can to life, not to take (or subtract) from it.
My Dads life lasted three hundred and sixty four million, fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty minutes and for me that number is by no means large enough, but perfect numbers like perfect men are hard to find!
I have my Dad to thank for many things, including my mind thanks to you I am neither left nor right brained, my eccentricity as well as my sense of style. I miss your waistcoats and pocket watches, your Inverness cape and deerstalker! I miss your hats. The chink of your pipe on the ash tray, the knotting of handkerchiefs, the furious foot wiggling when you were solving a problems. I miss the maths scribbled over graph paper, your raucous belly laugh which was bigger than heart. Most of all though I just miss you.
My Dad loved music. He used to listen to in and conduct it in the dark as he puzzled maths questions. When I was little I used to dance, leap and swril around the house to his music and I remember him laughing at me as Dad's do at the spontaneity of children. He was a big man but light on his feet and an amazing dancer. I remember how he could never resist the twist at families do and still went all the way down well into his 50s!
Given his eccentric style and his love of big bands I thought it would be fun to wear my Telstar band print dress. My Dad would have enjoyed the tailoring and the quirky print!
Dress: Halterneck circle dress in Telstar print by Vivien of Holloway
Shoes: Kurt Geiger
No comments:
Post a Comment