My dad passed away recently. He had a light stroke a short while ago and his condition deteriorated after that. I think we were all sad but relieved that he was out of his suffering when he went. He battled illnesses like diabetes and others quite a bit but never ever complained about it. My mom nursed him religiously and it’s to her credit that we had him for the additional number of years we did.

 

It’s difficult to describe him adequately. One is blessed in life to have people given to you that make a huge positive impact on one and he was one of them. He was a giant of a guy both in stature, being 6 foot 6 inches, but more of a giant in personal stature. He was just a great guy, loved his family with all his heart, had a great capacity for caring, huge sense of humor, gentle nature, soft heart, great intellect, just an overall super guy. He will be missed immensely. He loved nature and even though his eyesight was failing him he loved to get out into the wide open. We grew up on a farm and he loved walking and we used to go for these long languid walks, exploring and chatting and enjoying the fresh air. Home was always an oasis to me, a safe place to just let go and unwind, even as an adult. Having both my mom and dad there was just such a comfort. We were five kids but they made us all feel special. When I was young he had a huge back operation and was away with my mom in hospital for a few weeks and I felt so desolate with them gone. When they got back it was so comforting to just know they were there, even though he spent a lot of time in bed still.

 

As I was waiting in airports and sitting on the plane on the way home I was just flooded with great memories of him and I was in quite a tearful state at times. Sure he was human, he had quite a hot temper as a younger guy, he walloped me quite a few times but mostly the wallopings were deserved. I did get hidings for things my younger sister Jean did when we were small. She locked me in a  cupboard and he hauled me out and whacked me. I still bear the mental scars!! The funniest memory I have is when I was in my early teens we had an outhouse toilet on the farm and I had arranged a row of thorns around the edge of the wooden seat – basically a wooden deck with a big hole cut in it. It was my duty to empty the bucket periodically, the details of which are indescribable, so this deed was just recompense. Unexpectedly he came running down and banged himself down on the seat in a rush and let out a huge howl, ‘Who put the thorns on the seat?’ he roared in anger, like a wounded lion. Hanging around nearby to observe my revenge I of course pledged innocence, I was too petrified to admit complicity, behind his back I giggled though, the thought of his tingling behind gave me great pleasure. My brother Ian still has nightmares about a borehole pump he accidentally dropped down the borehole. ‘Ag !@#$%^ Ian!!’ was dad’s response. Ian said he feared for his life. My youngest brother Greg used to torment him and dad would chase him down and spank him until the day Greg was too quick and got away. I think dad then realized Greg had gotten too fast and did not chase him again.

 

There were sad moments too. I remember when his mother passed away at a good age we went to the funeral home to check on the coffin and he just put his hand on it and sighed ‘Momma’, like it came out of his deepest most innermost being. I remember holding his huge big hand in church when we buried my youngest brother Greg after a parachute accident just before he turned 21. My parents were shattered. My dad just bled incessantly. I used to phone him and we used to talk about Greg and just try to get the grief out, often in tears. He never got over it fully. It shook me too as my three younger siblings had been like my own kids. A week or two before he had been in tears when my youngest sister Mandy emigrated to Canada and I said ‘Don’t worry dad, you still have us all’, not knowing what would happen a week later.

 

There were plenty of happy moments too. He had developed a growth on his pituitary gland unbeknown to us and was just fading away as his body was getting no cortisone. He could hardly walk or sit down or get up. He was in his sixties. They discovered this and removed the growth and put him on cortisone pills. The turnaround was remarkable. A few months later we visited them and he walked in and sat down and my mouth hung open, he was like a new person. He could walk for miles again. I remember walking on the beach at Strand, near Cape Town where they lived, and I could hardly keep up with him. It was like a miracle. He had a huge love for nature. He loved going for long drives in the countryside. To my only credit I loved drives with them just as much so in his later years I made a point of collecting them and going for drives as often as I could and I will be eternally thankful for those times as those memories are priceless. In my travels, mostly work related, I used to look at scenery through his eyes, as if he was there to take it in too. In my mind I was always describing them to him.

 

He loved people and no one was too insignificant to justify his attention. He grew up with the African people on the farm and spoke their language, Sotho, like one of them. He loved chatting to them anywhere. They ran a shop for quite a while and the Africans loved stopping by to talk, joking and teasing and just shooting the breeze. This was in the dark days of South Africa’s ‘apartheid’ but race was no issue to him. The African mind, language and traditions fascinated him. He was a stern no nonsense guy but they loved him.

 

No one was more important than his family. My mom told me the story when I, the eldest, was a baby. He had left to go to work on the mines and left my mom and myself on the farm. One day she heard a horse gallop up and my dad rode up, jumped off, grabbed me and said something like ‘I don’t care if you’re coming with but I’m taking him back!’. So we packed up and spent 6 years in Welkom, a mining town. When my sister Jean had come along, she was eighteen months younger than me, and we were older my dad bought a little Vespa scooter to ride to work on. After work in the afternoons he would put the two of us on the back and take us for rides or in summer to the town swimming pool. One day we were riding on a sandy road and we fell. I hit the sand head first and my mouth was full of sand and Jean just hollered ‘Look at Peter’s mouth!!’. My two sisters eventually emigrated to other countries and that was hard for him to bear, he missed them tremendously. He had a whole band of grand children and my two kids loved him dearly. He loved yapping to them and teasing them whenever he could. They hated playing trivial pursuit near him as he always had most of the answers.

 

He never professed to be dogmatically religious but had a deep sort of faith and a knowledge and peace about who he thought God was. He also respected other peoples’ views even if they were different from his. Deep down I think he knew who he was and was in contact with himself, others and his God. I think many people saw God in his caring ways. God portrays himself as our Father and in that way dad was an excellent portrait of what I think God wants us to see Him as.

 

The last time I visited him was in February before the stroke. We went for a short walk as he was a bit weak and then we went for a long drive with Done`, my wife. We drove past the area where he had grown up in the mountains and I said ‘I want to go to De Solder’ (the farm where he grew up, quite remote) and he said ‘Ok, next time’. There will be no next time.

 

So, dad, I will miss you hugely, the mountains will miss you when I go driving and when I am walking on the beaches and in the hills you will be there forever. Thanks for who you were, your love and caring, I can still hear you say ‘Ja Pietman!’ Dutch for ‘yes, Peter boy’.

 

Video of Africans singing at the graveside