Today marks the 2 year anniversary of the day the most beautiful man in the world - my grandfather - passed away. Friday July 21 2006 was the saddest day yet in my life, but (even tho I'm not too much of a believer of that kind of thing), I know he is in a better place, as his quality of life just wasn't there in the end. Dudes funeral, the following week, was a beautiful service, the sun came out at the right time, and then my dad (Dudes son-in-law), and one of Dudes closest friend, Uncle Jim, toasted Dude in the best possible way - with way too much McGuiggans Black Label.
Dude was called Dude after his love of horse racing - when I was little, they lived on a main road, and he would walk up and down this road, with me on his shoulders, singing 'Camptown Races sing this Song - Doo-Dah, Doo,Dah', so when I began to talk, to me - he was known as Doo-Dah. Now, I'm not sure when it became Dude - it was either when my younger brother couldn't say Doo-Dah, or it was the introduction of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - who doesn't think they're cool, when they're 10, and they call their grandfather Dude?!
Anyway, Dude was a pretty amazing man, lived a very full life, and was very, very loved by his small family. I wish sometimes I would have been one of Dudes friends, back 50 years ago, instead of his granddaughter - Dude was the kid of person who drove his car to Queensland on a holiday (which was a 2 day trip from Sydney, back then), and decided that he didn't want to drive home, so he sold his car, bought a small aeroplane, and flew home. Then, years later, while my mums family were on holiday on the Gold Coast, he left his wife and daughter on the beach, went for a walk, and bought a house at Auction. My nan, who was used to this (and a very patient woman!) , was like 'ok', so they moved into the home on Chevron Island for a few years. The storey's go on - on one of his trips back and forth from QLD, he offered to ship some baby crocodiles to Sydney, to be collected by Taronga Zoo. The croc's were kept in a cardboard box in their backyard.... and then in rained! Nan tells the story how she had to phone all the neighbours and ask if they had a baby crocodile in their backyard!
Dudes real name is Arthur Thomas, and I always said that if one day I have a little boy, I'll call him after Dude - No, not Arthur (thank god, I all hear you say!), but Thomas. Well, in about 6 weeks I'll know the sex of the little foetus in my belly, and if he's a boy, I hope he lives up to his namesake - the most beautiful man in the world.
Here are a few digital scrapbooking pages I did just after he passed away - I hope you can open them in full screen and read them. And yes, that is Dudes bum - like I said, he was a character!
RIP Dude - love you.
L.
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4 comments:
Lovely scrap-booking!! Beautiful words about your Grandfather. I am a nanna's girl over here. Ten years this year and recently, when I was very scared of a health outcome, completely out of season, the rose I bought due to it's name, Julia, you can imagine the rest. Believe! He seems so well loved and it must have been a treasure to spend time with him.
Thanks for sharing!! xo
oh and that was me, Karen :P I am using the hubbies gmail as we bought the pc bits. Me and my silly toys :O sorry!
What a wonderful blog. He sounds like he would have been a person I would have loved to meet. Your layouts are great also.
Deb.
Aww that was a lovely post Lauren :) Dude sounds like a cool man.
Incidentally Ben's middle name is Thomas, we were in the midst of trying to work out if it was going to be Benjamin Thomans or Thomas Benjamin when the little bugger came early and we had to make a snappy decision. Probably should have called him Thomas given his obsession the TTT (Thomas the Tank)
LOL.
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