A good heart,
kindness embossed throughout,
Expressed in word and deed.
He stood upright, tall and regal.
With a mind clear and agile.
An excellent honest Inspector of police.
He proved himself as one of integrity
in the difficult days of The Troubles
when shifting sands caused better men to
stumble.
Perhaps his stability came from his warm
faith
working as a Gideon to provide all he could
with what was his mandate - the Bible.
His unusual quiet humility was accompanied
by a deep devotion to his wife.
He met her as a young constable on his
bike.
Entering the village shop he heard the bell
above the door
and then he saw her!
It was love at first sight.
Instant, total and devoted.
Not some fleeting fancy
but a love that grew over many decades
into over a half-century like a mighty oak.
As once we walked past a neighbour’s home
eighty-year-old David shivered in sympathy.
The owner was recently widowed
David said the thought of him ever losing
his own wife
made his heart ache in horror.
But the years brought dementia to his door.
It was hard to see words take flight from
his mind.
That agile, fluid, articulate mind began to
stumble.
Making a sentence an impossible hurdle.
When he fell down his staircase
and was left with huge black bruises on his
chest
he struggled to explain what had happened.
But in trying to express his gratitude
in surviving the bad fall
he raised a finger pointing above
and managed to convey his gratitude
to the "Big Guy" upstairs.
He had three loves.
His wife his Faith and his music.
Long after conversation stopped completely
he could sing the old songs of Ireland
in a beautiful tone that stirred the
spirits.
Then that too stopped
and there was nothing
that was not taken from him.
I will not dwell on this final bereft phase.
Who knows why tests rain down on mighty
souls?
Is it perhaps our test not theirs?
Who knows?
But this week he threw off this fleeting
shadow of a world.
I like to think of him striding out on
sunlight fields.
Full of his old vigour of mind
surrounded by all his great loves.
I am grateful for the fragrance of his
existence
that lingers in my mind
the citrus tone that ever cleanses the senses.
