The Light Walk

(As many of you will know, my father passed away in December of last year. This is something I wrote at the time...) 

My last walk with my father was around the Longshaw Estate in the early part of 2013. It was perfect. We talked, we laughed - we had a great day with a fine pub meal afterwards in a crooked corner of an ancient, beautiful pub. We'd made plans to get out again for a short stroll or a light walk, but in the end we didn't quite manage it...

There are things now lost to us all. Things no one will ever experience again.
In November I was in a recently opened independent record shop. A small place, up a side road and squeezed in between other vacant shop fronts, like a nervous punter working their way through the crowds at the busy end of the bar, as though to say - I am here now, please notice me.
The smell of record shops - I'd forgotten.  It had gone from my mind totally. But here it was. I was a boy again, running down to Woolworth's with a Christmas Record Token, or lying on my back looking at the album sleeve as my Dad played a Joni Mitchell record on the player above me. I marvelled, as I often do, that the sale of physical copies of music is now more or less a fringe interest, surviving mainly at the behest of aging collectors and the powerful manipulative shelving industry.
There were five people in there, and I spent an enjoyable few minutes flicking through the vinyl and CDs. I quite like this, I thought. But then I had an odd feeling that I couldn't quite place. Suddenly it came to me - it didn't feel like a record shop, it felt like a recreation of one. It's the same feeling I get when I see a kindly bearded man dressed in furs tanning leather at a National Trust open day, or in Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe where quarters of Devon Pears are ladled into paper bags by a lady in Victorian garb.
An exercise in nostalgia. A simulation to quell a desire now fading away.
I left, and it was raining. Winter coming in after a long dry autumn.

The next day I was with my Dad. In the dark cool afternoon I pushed him in a borrowed wheelchair down the hospital corridor. As we travelled, Dad discussed with me the path of life, marvelling with a genuine sense of wonder at how all we'd ever done, he and I, had led us to this moment. We continued down the corridor, with each step breaking some hidden beam, causing the bulb above us to come flicking into life - illuminating our way.
"A light walk." I said to no one in particular.
"Heh. Yes." said Dad, reaching up and squeezing my hand.

Soon we were down the corridor and away, out. The lights shutting down behind us one by one.

My father always understood me - even in a handful of words.

Dad is gone now.
The world a little darker for his leaving it.
But here in the shadows, I shall not forget him....