My Beautiful Dad

John Andrew William Jackson (Jet)

11th October 1944 - 27th October 1998

This is a photo taken of Dad in '93 on his last trip to the UK, to visit his mum and sister.

My beautiful dad was diagnosed with Lung cancer in 1998, six months after his retirement.

He and mum had planned to spend another 20 years at their farm in Dargo, unfortunately after treatment started he only made two or three more visits to the farm, with mum and the family.

He died in October 1998, eight months after diagnosis, and 17 days after his 55th birthday.  There is an old saying 'only the good die young' - in this case it rang true.

Below is the letter I wrote to dad as a eulogy for his funeral.  I was fortunate in that, in the time he had between diagnosis and death, I had the chance to tell him how much I loved him - we all need that chance.

Dear Dad

We're all gathered here today to say goodbye to you.  We know you hated the idea of a soppy funeral and want us all to get on with our lives but please understand that we need this shared time with everyone who loved and admired you, to say farewell.

You may not have gotten the orange crate or cardboard box you requested but then again, you also never got to live your retirement years the way you wanted to either.  Life's not fair!  But at least we can guarantee that the bottom won't fall out of the casket.

As we sat through your last hours with you, you amazed us all with how strongly you held on to the fragile life you have been living. The beat of your heart was still as powerful as ever. And even though the cancer had affected your lungs, they still rose and fell with the tenacity that was you.

Memories of life with you, the fun times, the agro times, the practical jokes you played and the jokes you told will keep us strong.

A physical reminder of you will live on in your grandchildren Melanie, Aimee, Bobbie and Teesha; and also Rhiannon, Robert and Brannden who you loved just as much and whom you considered as your own. The kids will miss the bonfires that you would help them build at the farm.   The great shame is that they won't have the benefit of growing to know you adult to adult as we have.

You and mum wanted a better life for us, with more opportunities than were available in England, so you brought us to Australia.   In my teen years I resented the move, mainly because I missed our grandparents and extended family, but over the years I have become grateful for the life you have given us here in Australia.   For the chance our children have been given in this wonderful country, because of you and mum.

You loved it here in Australia, and after many weekends out in a chuckle when I remember you and I chasing Danny and Pat’s cattle all over the far paddock.   Once again I was puffing and panting, but you were just getting angrier and angrier at how stupid those cows were.

Remember the time when the old, supposedly fake, egg you found exploded in the paddock, and you were surrounded by the cloud of rotten egg gas, I almost wet myself laughing.

We had a great laugh, when, after we’d finished renovating your bedroom we realised we’d forgotten to insulate the walls.   You and mum had quite a few cold nights after that.

Thankyou for letting me share these times with you, I know Mum, Andrew, Guy and Paul have similar memories of you that they will cherish.

We are all feeling angry right now, not at you but for you, and for the unfairness of the stolen years that you and mum should have had together at the farm. Maybe in time we’ll come to see fates reasoning.

We want to thank you for so many things, and today, together with friends we will all be saying silent thanks to you.

We give thanks for being allowed to have the pleasure of knowing and loving you for the last forty odd years.

Paul is grateful for the time he spent with you whilst painting the house in Mornington. I know he will always remember being with you and mum during those first few days. Maybe his ex-bosses should be thanked for unfairly dismissing him, because if it wasn’t for them, he wouldn’t have been able to spend the time with you. The fates at work.

Guy wants you to know that he hopes that he can be as great an influence in his children’s lives as you have been in ours.

And Andrew, I know, will always consider you his best friend, as he remembers the fun and hard work you shared both out in the bush and especially around the farm.

I would thank you for the love of reading you instilled in me, Dick Francis will always remind me of you. So too will the coffee table, which you always swore was how big Pam and Hughie's Blue Heeler was. Like your dad you were always prone to a little exaggeration, but we loved you for it as it always gave us a laugh.

I cannot speak to you of the pain and loss mum is feeling right now, but I’m sure that you know and will give her strength through fond and loving memories.

Mark and the boys will always put your two cents worth in when it comes to teasing me. Watching a horror movie will never be the same though, without you scaring the living daylights out of us by saying boo, just at the climactic stage.

Gran and Chris and all our relatives in England have only recently discovered what we all knew, and I know that you and Grandad are watching over them now. Give them our love and imbibe them with your strength to go on.

You were a firm believer in the afterlife and reincarnation. I hope in our next lives we will meet again, and after the hell on earth you have suffered in the last 8 months of this life, that all good things will be yours in the next.

I have never loved any man, except Mark, as deeply as I love you and I will carry that love forever. May peace be yours eternally, dad.

All my love Karen

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