Sunday 30 July 2017

My Sunday Photo - Week 135 U is for unexpected

This is the birthday card I bought for my Dad, his birthday will be on September the 7th. Sadly he died on July 11th.

As an expat, living in Dubai, I always get cards and gifts ready in advance and leave with my mum to hand out during the year. I was in the UK when my Dad died, this was my 3rd visit this year and I'm grateful I was able to be with him the night the he died and to have spent so much time with him and the family in his final few months, although at the time we didn't know that.

In my Dad's eulogy we wrote 'If Doug had 2 of anything, it would become a collection'

My Dad collected memorabilia, his collections include football, stamps, toy cars, sporting gear, posters, records, in fact you name it, he collected it.

Dad had started to catalogue a lot of stuff and always kept things neat and tidy, there were bits of his collections throughout the entire 4 bed house and on occasion, if he had spares or we really liked something (pestered him or swapped stuff) he'd hand it over.

My relationship with with Dad was a fiery one and we'd wind one another up to the point of no return. But I loved him and knew he loved me, even if the words weren't said often enough.

I often said to him to sell his collections, enjoy the money, but he'd say 'you'll thank me one day, some of this stuff is worth quite a bit' but I'd tell him I didn't want to have to go through it all, sell it etc after he died, it was too much of a chore to have to do that.

Well that day has come.

It won't be going in the skip of course, but it is a huge job ahead of us that we all face to sort and sell his stuff and one that I'm not sure I really have the energy to do.


12 comments:

  1. Love the card and it sounds like you're going to have so many stories to tell about him (and his collections) over the decades to come. I hope you're all doing ok x

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    1. ive no real idea if i'm doing ok or not right now, but i know i'm doing if that makes any sense

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  2. I love the card and have asked my dad to start sorting out his paperwork, luckily he is doing it as 86 years worth of paper is a lot! #MySundayPhoto

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    1. thankfully dad's paperwork was all sorted, i've also got all of ours up to date now, it's all the stuff that i need to sell that's causing the headaches

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  3. I love the card...
    Good luck sorting out his collections x

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  4. Replies
    1. skip will be the last resort, depends how quickly the house sells though

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  5. Lovely post, I'm sure lots of treasures will be found

    Thank you for linking up

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    Replies
    1. it's difficult not to start reminiscing and to actually just get on with the job

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  6. What a beautiful post and what a fitting card. It's so important to keep these memories alive.
    My son is a collector too. I don't want him to sell his collections because I think they will be worth more in the future.

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    Replies
    1. sadly a lot of what my dad valued is worth very little compared to the money and time he put into it and now it's just a hassle for us to get rid of

      Delete

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