COLLEEN
Happy 100th birthday Daddy! It would be great to be able to celebrate together – Mummy would have baked a cake, and I’m sure your granddaughter, Melanie, would help to decorate it in magnificent style!
I have so many reflections to share, and I admit upfront, that I am a shameless ‘daddy’s girl’ – not because you doted on me, but because I doted on you! I remember as a young child in England you would shine our shoes on a Sunday night and on Monday morning we would find a three pence piece (I know I date myself here!). You once bought dresses for us from the market across the street, and I was the proudest child you could imagine in my new dress, because my Daddy bought it for me!
Later in Jamaica, I remember sitting at the water’s edge for hours with my sisters and cousins, collecting what we called Ahee (cockles of some sort). You would take buckets of seawater and throw over our backs to cool us down. After dinner, you would also take your dog, Sheba, to the two mile post outside Lucea and let her out to run back home behind your car.
I know you were also a weeper - you wept at my graduation, walking me down the aisle, and at the inauguration of the Jamaica Sports Hall of Fame where someone said, in admiration, “It takes a real man to openly shed tears like that!”
Apparently, I looked a lot like you as a child, and there was NOTHING more annoying to me then to have people say “What a way you look like yu father!” As a teenager, someone even stopped me in the middle of a busy London Oxford Street – stood right in front of me, preventing me from walking, and said “You have to be Arthur Wint’s daughter!” I absolutely hated it! But as I got older, I began to feel less annoyed and secretly proud of our resemblance, and especially since my son bears a striking resemblance to you as well. When he was born you said “Don’t burden the boy with my name!” to which I replied, it is NOT a burden, Daddy, it’s an honour!”
You were always supportive and whenever any of us needed you - for whatever reason - you made every effort to be there for us, or to assuage whatever our fears or challenges were. I remember calling you in Linstead in a panic as my just-walking daughter, Djavila, had a couple of falls – I was quite ready to take a loan to carpet the entire house, but you calmly set my mind at ease, that tumbles at this age were normal etc.
So many little memories – family singalongs with you playing the mouth-organ (harmonica), the way you would come in from the cold outdoors and put your(large) hands around our neck and watch us squirm; and when we went on a cruise and they discovered you were a parson’s son and asked you to take the Sunday service; the many lessons you taught us – once Alison and I tried to hoodwink you with a huge party guest list, folded it and asked you to sign your approval, which you did…and when we secretly celebrated that we had caught you out, we realised you had signed Alison’s name, not yours! Lesson: “never sign anything you haven’t read! Once you and I were standing in a darkened room, staring out the window…Mummy came to see what on earth we were doing. We were watching the moon rise over the mountains.
It would be a great 100th party, Daddy, you are loved by so many! There would be music, food and drink, dominoes definitely, lots of chatter and laughter, and you would be in your element, with those you love around. Your older grandchildren would be soaking you all in, and you would probably be found, alternately racing around the bougainvillea with little Bethany and Anabelle, or discussing some health or sport issues with everyone else. Then you would end the day, sitting outside in the dark, content, with your cigarette and beer. I’d probably intrude and come and sit quietly with you. As the song says, oh how I wish I could dance with my father again. Miss you so much, but I know you’re always with us.hat got them to where they are.