He was just here

My dad died last Wednesday night. He was 87 and not in the best of health (although, not too so bad, as he would answer every time he was asked how he was) but it still kind of came from nowhere and threw us into a little tailspin for a few days. We're not spinning anymore but we're not exactly static either.  We buried him on Saturday morning and did our best to give him the kind of send-off he deserved. He was a no-fuss, don't bother anyone kind of man so he'd have hated the attention, hated all the people taking about him but, sorry Dad – that's what you get for being nice to people your entire life.

I was very lucky to see him the night before he passed away. I took the dog out with me to visit and sat with him for a while as he flicked around the TV channels. He asked the same things he asked every time we saw each other. He had a library of questions for each of his children for whenever he visited. Mine went something like this:

"How's work?"
"How's Helen?"
"Did you get a sweet?"
"Are you not wearing a jumper?"
"How's the house?"
"Do you want a drink?"
"How's the woman in the Park?" (that's my mother in law)
"Did you drive over?"
"Did you get a sweet?" (yeah, he'd ask that one a lot)

We sat and talked and went through all the questions. Then I spent a bit of time asking him about various pubs around town that he might've known. Just to see how his memory was functioning. He walked me around O'Connell and Marlborough Streets describing his old haunts. He remembered it all. 

I'd love to say I had a feeling when I left that it'd be the last time but, in fact, I thought he seemed sharper than at Christmas. I wasn't worried about the immediate future. Shows what I know. He passed away the following evening. I was asked to give a eulogy so with a day's notice (or 44 year's notice) I sat down to write the following tribute. Starts with a terrible pun and rapidly goes downhill from there. It's light on anecdote but heavy on feeling. That's kinda how he was. 

Thanks - I’m the one who drew the short straw this morning so let’s see if we can get through this in one piece. I’ll be as brief as I can. 

I’d like to start by saying how much we appreciate everything that Father Joe has done for us over the last couple of days here and in the funeral home. And thanks also to everyone here for coming from near and far to say goodbye to our dad today. It means so much.

A couple of days ago we were in the funeral home choosing Dad’s coffin. Before we went back to tell the Funeral Director which one we’d chosen, we noted that it was called ‘Elphin’ - a revelation that inevitably prompted more than one of us to say that nobody was to mention the elphin in the room. Which only proves that there’s literally no situation – no matter how sombre – that a Connolly won’t see a chance to use a terrible pun. We got that from him.

Well, this morning we’re here to talk about the Elphin in the Room - or more specifically, the man inside it, it so let’s give it a shot.

“Your Dad was a man who took enormous pride in the achievements of his family”. Somebody wrote that in a text to my sister Gay this week and I don’t think we could describe him any better. Family before everything. He lived for his children and his grandchildren. And his sister May’s children too. He never stopped thinking of Michael, Julie and Terry – and their children – as important members of his family.  

Dad wasn’t a complicated man. He was solid, dependable, proud and approachable. No matter what you were into he was there to listen – but not to judge. He rarely offered advice but that’s because when you spoke to him, the solution to your situation would became apparent just from talking about it with him. He had a very handy ability to listen - letting you fill in the blanks and reaching a conclusion without you realising he’d led you there all along. He was so smart.

He believed in work. In getting up, working hard to make a better life for your children and coming home with a newspaper under your arm so you all know what’s going on in the world. That’s our memory of him when we were children. Working. He never took a sick day. There were no Duvet Days for John Connolly! Not a whole lot of ‘me-time’ either. By the time Gerry and I arrived in the early 70s, Dad was working for the P&T – what we remember as Telecom Eireann – but my sisters recall a time in the late 60s when he worked a range of jobs from cab driving to working the lines in Cadburys or in the Jeyes factory. Some days were he brought home free chocolate, other days it was free toilet roll. The Cadbury days were always more popular!

But before any of that stuff was the most important event in all our lives. The evening in March 1954 when Dad strolled – Dad loved to stroll – into the Kingsway Ballroom in Dublin and met a 19 year old suffer-no-fools city girl who worked in Easons and was looking to bag a keeper. And how well did she keep him? Mam and Dad dated for several years before – and this is what I was told last night – “a Melancholy baby from the Palm Grove parlour on O’Connell Street” sealed the deal. They met in March 1954, got married in June 1958 and spend the next 58 years doing everything together. 

It might not sound like the stuff of a classic rom-com film – although Melancholy Baby does have a ring about it – and you might not get rich writing a song about it but for the Connolly children, it was – and is – the greatest love story of all. They weren’t quite inseparable – Dad wasn’t the swimming or yoga type and Maisie didn’t care much for the inside of a bookmakers – although she had to get used to it in later years – but they still did pretty much everything else you can think of together. Right up to Wednesday afternoon when they packed a bag, left the house and went to Beaumont Hospital for the last time. We’ll get back to that. But first..

You might have seen his great friend Willy bringing up Dad’s rings at the start of the mass. They're important because at some point, Dad became an expert at the much-loved game of rings. Now some of you younger people here, like anyone under the age of 70, probably won’t know what rings is but it’s kind of like darts with rubber hoops. They say at one time there was a ringboard in every bar in Dublin but its popularity, you’ll be amazed to hear, dwindled from the 1980s onwards. But for a while Dad was pretty handy at it and our house is still full of trophies from various ring championships around the country. If I sound like I’m diminishing his achievements or the sport in general I don’t mean to. In fact, yesterday morning a letter came from the EBS addressed to dad. See, he was the treasurer of the Dublin Rings League and the letter contained the organisation’s annual statement and investment advice. The current balance? Four euro and fifty three cents. So don’t try to tell me that John Connolly never hit the big time!

But that was typical of dad. Anyone can take up golf or tennis or whatever - but to be a ring champion - that takes not only skill and a head for maths but a very, very good sense of humour. He had it all.

He loved Maths too. Figures, permutations, election tallies, league tables - any kinds of data. He knew every bus route in the city - if only to know how best to avoid them in the car. If you were taking a lift from Dad, you’d better be prepared to go through X, Y and Z on the way from A to B. When his children moved away from Dublin he always took the time to learn everything he could about the local GAA or rugby teams near them or whatever was happening in their new community. And numbers, numbers, numbers.He couldn’t get enough. The amount of times he tried to explain the complicated (to me, at least) odds relating to horses or football. Accumulators, triples, double-downs. It was easy to him, it’s Greek to me.

That’s not to say his skill at understanding the complicated mathematics of gambling didn’t have much of an impact on his success rate, as race meeting after race meeting ended without Dad’s horses bothering the finish line. Didn’t matter - it was only ever a bit of fun and it kept him sharp, engaged and active. His last betting slips are still at home unchecked but if this was a movie you know what’d happen. But we all know they’re probably another pack of losers. 

And, in fairness, occasionally he did hit the jackpot - at which point all of us would get a little win bonus. In fact, over the years we all became accustomed to occasionally been handed this little thin strip of paper that unfolded into a note of some denomination with a grunt to go and get something nice. The other night I brought our dog over when I visited and, sure enough, as I left he handed me a little strip of paper with an instruction to "go and get something for the little black fella". Don’t tell the dog though - I’m keeping it for myself. But we were in the hospital the other night holding his hands and Gay reminded me of all the times one of them would reach over as you were leaving to to give you a little something. We’ll miss those hands. We’ll kinda miss the hand-outs too!

He loved music too. All kinds of music. Frank Sinatra’s ‘Summer Wind’ was one of his favourites. But he loved melodies over everything - which makes sense because he kind of was a melody. He was gentle and lilting and harmonious. And memorable. He was so lovely.

Dad was 87 when he left us. He had 88 Christmases - the second last of which he spent in Beaumont Hospital and we feared would be his last. But just as he did after his stroke four years ago he fought back, in no small apart due to our mother’s extraordinary love, attention and care, to give us another year or so - including one final Christmas at home last month. In the end he just ran out of road, taking his leave suddenly on Wednesday evening with all of us by his side. He died very shortly after we all got there but we stayed with him in the hospital for hours and it was one of the nicest - if that’s a word I can use - part of the week. I’d say it annoyed him though - all of us sitting there drinking cold tea and wasting money on parking fees when he’d already left us.

You know, he really went so fast and, of course, we all wish we’d had another month, another birthday or another Christmas with him but, really, he gave us everything he had before he slipped away. He owed us nothing. We owe him everything.

We also owe a debt of gratitude to all the people - friends, neighbours and strangers - who have overwhelmed us with their kindness over the last few days. The depth of their feeling for him has been a wonderful thing to experience. You all know who you are and we’ll never forget it. It’s been a sad few days but it’s been lovely too. A happy kind of sadness. 

I’ve been trying to work my way toward a smart conclusion but it’s pretty simple really. Dad was a loyal, supportive husband who adored his wife for more than 60 years. He did what all the things that dads do without complaint. He was a joker who very rarely raised his voice. He was a gentleman - that’s something we’ve been hearing over and over this week from well-wishers. A gentleman that loved his family and gave them everything he had – right up to his last breath. That was our dad.

How lucky were we?