Today is the anniversary of my dear father’s death, Harry Patrick Forde (known as Paddy Forde). It is also the birthday of my dear friend, Nick Kirby from Lafayette in Tennessee, USA. Having a joint song dedication for the anniversary of a deceased father and for the birthday celebration of a friend is the greatest of all reminders that love never ceases, even when it is passed beyond the grave or is expressed in everyday life. It reminds one that life goes on, even after our loved ones leave us. It invites us to take all the love they ever gave us and to give that same love to another who lives today.
The single and most important thing my father shared with today's birthday boy, Nick Kirby, was their daily ‘struggle’. Dad’s life was a constant struggle bringing up a large family on a low wage and Nick’s struggle is daily caring for his lovely wife, Sheriann who is of ill health. Sheriann battles two terminal illnesses which suppress her immune system and she suffers considerable pain constantly. I hope that your birthday is kind to you, Nick and that your wife Sheriann’s health hasn’t worsened. Thank you for being my Facebook friend.
The month of March is the month of the year when my late father was both born and died. I dedicate my song today to my deceased father who was ‘a good man’. Dad died on March 27th, 1991. He was 75 years old at the time and had lived a hard and honourable life. Like my dear mother, each sweat of their brows from their first day of parenthood was directed towards putting food on the family table, clothes on the backs and shoes on the feet of their seven children (of which I was their firstborn) and providing all their children with a code of behaviour and a set of values that stood us in good stead ever since.
I have previously written much about my dear father and will merely add these extra comments for the purpose of today’s post. Dad was among the strongest of personalities I ever knew and was of his generation’s best crop. He believed fervently in an individual ‘doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage’ and he viewed the sweat of a man’s brow and his industrious nature to represent the backbone of their character and the spine of their individual worth.
Dad had two favourite songs which he often sang quietly while bathing the miner’s dust off his body when he returned home at the end of his miner’s shift at the local colliery. His collier’s face always fascinated me. He could wash, bathe and scrub for an hour until his skin bled and there would still be coal dust hiding in his body crevices and skin pores. Years of gradual build-up of black coal dust provides a permanent black-glaze-like undercoat to the skin foundation. This shiny facial look designates any man carrying these distinctive features as once having worked down a mine or at the pit coalface. It is like a white man giving you a black smile.
One of my father’s favourite songs was ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ which I sang in memory of his heavenly birthday six days ago (March 21st), and his second favourite song was ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from the Rogers and Hammerstein’s 1949 musical ‘South Pacific’ . This is the song that I sing today in memory of the anniversary of his death. It is not surprising that dad loved this sung as it has long been regarded as being ‘the single biggest popular hit to come out of any Rodgers and Hammerstein show.’] It is a three-verse solo for the leading male character, Emile, in which he describes seeing a stranger, knowing that he will see her again, and dreaming of her laughter. He sings that when you find your ‘true love’, you must ‘fly to her side and make her your own’.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On the anniversary of your death dad, know this. All your seven children love you, appreciate everything that you and mum ever did for us during our upbringing; the sacrifices you made to rear us strong, to bring us up to walk with pride and confidence, to be forever Christian, compassionate and forgiving individuals who were never fearful of ‘hard work’ or afraid of standing up for what we believed in.
As the firstborn of your seven children, I want you to know that when you and mum died, though you had no money to leave us in your will, you left us a richer inheritance than any amount of wealth, land and property willed to any other child in the land could ever yield. The inheritance you left your seven children, dad, was ‘each other’. You taught us that individually, we are as strong as one person can be, but more importantly, you showed us that while the seven of us remain bound together in love and single purpose, we will never be broken by any adversary that life throws at us, and the Forde Family will go on from strength to strength as your many grandchildren today demonstrate in abundance.
Thank you, Dad. I love you, dad, as do your other six children, Mary, Eileen, Patrick, Peter, Michael and Susan. Your firstborn, Billy xxx
Love and peace Bill xxx
The single and most important thing my father shared with today's birthday boy, Nick Kirby, was their daily ‘struggle’. Dad’s life was a constant struggle bringing up a large family on a low wage and Nick’s struggle is daily caring for his lovely wife, Sheriann who is of ill health. Sheriann battles two terminal illnesses which suppress her immune system and she suffers considerable pain constantly. I hope that your birthday is kind to you, Nick and that your wife Sheriann’s health hasn’t worsened. Thank you for being my Facebook friend.
The month of March is the month of the year when my late father was both born and died. I dedicate my song today to my deceased father who was ‘a good man’. Dad died on March 27th, 1991. He was 75 years old at the time and had lived a hard and honourable life. Like my dear mother, each sweat of their brows from their first day of parenthood was directed towards putting food on the family table, clothes on the backs and shoes on the feet of their seven children (of which I was their firstborn) and providing all their children with a code of behaviour and a set of values that stood us in good stead ever since.
I have previously written much about my dear father and will merely add these extra comments for the purpose of today’s post. Dad was among the strongest of personalities I ever knew and was of his generation’s best crop. He believed fervently in an individual ‘doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage’ and he viewed the sweat of a man’s brow and his industrious nature to represent the backbone of their character and the spine of their individual worth.
Dad had two favourite songs which he often sang quietly while bathing the miner’s dust off his body when he returned home at the end of his miner’s shift at the local colliery. His collier’s face always fascinated me. He could wash, bathe and scrub for an hour until his skin bled and there would still be coal dust hiding in his body crevices and skin pores. Years of gradual build-up of black coal dust provides a permanent black-glaze-like undercoat to the skin foundation. This shiny facial look designates any man carrying these distinctive features as once having worked down a mine or at the pit coalface. It is like a white man giving you a black smile.
One of my father’s favourite songs was ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ which I sang in memory of his heavenly birthday six days ago (March 21st), and his second favourite song was ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from the Rogers and Hammerstein’s 1949 musical ‘South Pacific’ . This is the song that I sing today in memory of the anniversary of his death. It is not surprising that dad loved this sung as it has long been regarded as being ‘the single biggest popular hit to come out of any Rodgers and Hammerstein show.’] It is a three-verse solo for the leading male character, Emile, in which he describes seeing a stranger, knowing that he will see her again, and dreaming of her laughter. He sings that when you find your ‘true love’, you must ‘fly to her side and make her your own’.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On the anniversary of your death dad, know this. All your seven children love you, appreciate everything that you and mum ever did for us during our upbringing; the sacrifices you made to rear us strong, to bring us up to walk with pride and confidence, to be forever Christian, compassionate and forgiving individuals who were never fearful of ‘hard work’ or afraid of standing up for what we believed in.
As the firstborn of your seven children, I want you to know that when you and mum died, though you had no money to leave us in your will, you left us a richer inheritance than any amount of wealth, land and property willed to any other child in the land could ever yield. The inheritance you left your seven children, dad, was ‘each other’. You taught us that individually, we are as strong as one person can be, but more importantly, you showed us that while the seven of us remain bound together in love and single purpose, we will never be broken by any adversary that life throws at us, and the Forde Family will go on from strength to strength as your many grandchildren today demonstrate in abundance.
Thank you, Dad. I love you, dad, as do your other six children, Mary, Eileen, Patrick, Peter, Michael and Susan. Your firstborn, Billy xxx
Love and peace Bill xxx
