My mother-in-law selected the music which soundtracked our time together with him, moments of reflection, sadness at his passing and joy at the many, many memories of his kindness and love for his family.
I'm not a traditionalist in most things, but I did ask him for permission to marry Mrs. K and his reaction - there were tears (of happiness, I hasten to add) - will always stay with me. I knew him for
over two decades and he was the best "in law" I could have wished for,
welcoming me into the family and just being a great dad to us.
I'm pretty sure there were seven songs in the twenty-or-so minutes of music; I can only recall six, thinking I've missed the actual penultimate song somewhere. Back at the house, my mother-in-law couldn't remember all of the songs either; hardly surprising as our thoughts were elsewhere. She didn't write it down beforehand and will contact the funeral directors as she's asked me to burn a CD-R of the songs for her.
The songs will be familiar to many of you. Not your typical Dubhed fare perhaps, although by sheer coincidence one of the artists appeared a couple of weeks ago in my tribute to Sylvia Sims.
I've scoured YouTube to find the songs and - in all but two cases - live/TV performances by the artists in question. The opening song has a monologue at the start and a second song at the end, so the song in question runs from approx. 2:00 to 7:30.
The closing song is about as good a choice as one could wish for.
My father-in-law's ashes will be returned home on Friday. In many other respects, he never left and will always be with us in our hearts.
Thank you, David, for everything.
1) The Lonely Shepherd: James Last ft. Gheorghe Zamfir
2) Moon River: Andy Williams
3) As Time Goes By: Perry Como
4) It's All In The Game: Nat King Cole
5) My Way: Frank Sinatra
6) What A Wonderful World: Louis Armstrong