A Father's Fight
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
I’ve written here about my dad a few times. He had a great big fear of dying like his mother. Slow and in writhing pain. When he was first diagnosed with bladder cancer he fought like mad to keep his “parts” and his dignity. That bought him 17 more years of living, reading, pottering, fixing, creating and speaking truth.
My dad was a brave man to have lived knowing that the other cancer, he was diagnosed with, would eventually take him.
He didn’t go gentle into that good night. He fought with the words that were given him as a young boy during the war, “I’m trying to be a brave soldier.” It was painful but he tried to his last breath.
This Father’s Day, and every day, missing my dad, knowing that my husband’s dad did not go gentle into that good night either, (so very young), I dedicate this poem, by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, to all the fathers out there, step-fathers, adoptive fathers, fathers-to-be, grieving fathers, estranged fathers, those with their fathers and missing their fathers. I wish you peace and love.
Keep fighting the good fight to the end.
To my husband, who I remind weekly to be gentle, I thank you for your strength, endurance, generosity, creativity and fearlessness. I know you will never go gentle into that good night.
Happy Father’s Day. God keep you. ox
I miss you dad. ox
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas | 1951
Your Dad's eyes said so much. They are beautiful. My Dad fought to breathe at the end of his last battle. He endured pulmonary fibrosis from years of working on the tarmac at Kennedy Airport in NYC, working hard to keep his family fed and clothed. When he was almost finished with his earth walk, I told him that he was my hero. He only laughed quietly. He was a WW2 soldier who never told us he was in the Battle of the Bulge or that he had all these medals until we found them in an old trunk. He was one in a million. We shall see him again, he was never "lost". We can start rejoicing even now!
Such a fitting poem for such the brave soldier ❤ ...beautiful Deb 🙌