the end

This last weekend in Tassie heralded the end - the end of a myriad of things that need to be done when someone dies. The last few months have been filled with decisions and organising and forms and processes. In his last days my father said "when everything finish you get all family together and you go and have big steak, best steak, all together," so that is what we did. Yesterday we gathered all the family in Tasmania for a celebratory lunch. It has been three months since my father's death and last week would have been his 77th birthday. We watched snippets from old videos and saw his image and heard his voice once again, we shared memories and stories and laughed a lot.

And today I find myself back home and a weariness and sadness fills me. I wandered to the communal garden to water my tomato plants and pick the first of my ripened crop. The tomatoes are a link with my father. I will make pasta sauce with these, just like my father would have done...