23: Pinned a poppy to his lapel

This past Saturday, while Tony and Lise eulogized their father, Norman Edward Newton, I fumbled out my memo pad and block-printed "FINE AND GREEN AND FULL OF LIGHT". I shot a lot of photos that weekend but hadn't planned a postcard -- they don't normally have sober subjects.

Norm had double pneumonia -- slow, disagreeable, debiliating and painful. He used that time to talk to family and friends, to make sure things were said before it was too late to say them. Things we ought to say when we're young and lovely and have time for love. Or when we're old and casual. Or when we...

The postcard title: Norm was a war veteran so his casket was pinned with poppies. Though of different generations, Angus McDonald was a good friend of Norm's and spent many hours in hospital with him near the end -- an experience that, coupled with the service, left Angus unusually subdued. At the end of the service we went to the casket together and knelt by Norm's side. Angus tried to speak, stopped, said Norm's name and stopped. I took a poppy from the casket, put it on his suit and said, 'take him with you'.

We went out to the front and I left Angus with the other pall bearers. Bryan and I went into the back sitting room and cried ourselves a while, thinking of our own fathers: mine dead over fifteen years and never properly laid rest for me; his progressively weaker from diabetes, with unguessable prognosis. There's so damn much left to do.