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Speaker 1: Good morning everyone. Good morning. I've lost a dear friend,

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Speaker 1: a friendship that has endured over well over sixty years.

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Speaker 1: We became friends Bert and I out of a mutual

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Speaker 1: love of radio. But over those years, my wife and

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Speaker 1: I have shared so many wonderful private occasions, especially with

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Speaker 1: Burton Patty's joy at the arrival of their children, Matthew

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Speaker 1: and Lauren. And it's Matthew and Lauren who I have

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Speaker 1: the honor of representing to day. With Matthew, I had

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Speaker 1: a call lasting some forty five minutes yesterday which resulted

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Speaker 1: in IM sending this letter, which I'm honored to read

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Speaker 1: to you this morning. I'm very sorry that, due to

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, I can't be with you all there to

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Speaker 1: celebrate Dad. Growing up, I never really watched Bambi, or

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Speaker 1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or a lot of

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Speaker 1: other kids movies you could name. I didn't want to.

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Speaker 1: What fascinated me were the movies that created that black

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Speaker 1: and white glow radiating through the doorway of my dad's

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Speaker 1: home office. That's where I wanted to be. So by

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Speaker 1: the age of ten, my dad had introduced me to

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Speaker 1: Humphrey Bogart, the Marx brothers, Elisha Cook, Junior, aven and Costello,

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Speaker 1: Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and on and on. They were

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Speaker 1: our buddies, and Dad and I began a back and

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Speaker 1: forth conversation about them that would continue without a break

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Speaker 1: for the next thirty four years. Swapping old showbiz stories

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Speaker 1: and legends was how he and I, two Catholic Australian

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Speaker 1: men of different generations, expressed our love, expressed our love

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Speaker 1: and affection for one another without having to actually say it.

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Speaker 1: All the time, we'd exchanged the same stories and bits,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of them, over and over, not caring that we

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Speaker 1: already knew them, just loving to hear them again and again,

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Speaker 1: more importantly, hearing the other person tell them again. They

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Speaker 1: were the conversational equivalent of playing our favorite songs. We

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Speaker 1: were jamming together and we loved it. It was our

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Speaker 1: secret club. I remember proudly telling Dad when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid, Hey, the books on my shelf in my

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Speaker 1: bedroom and the books on the shelf in your office

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Speaker 1: are all about the same sort of things, Dad, to

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Speaker 1: which he replied absolutely, of course. The other way of

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Speaker 1: saying that, Matthew, is you stole half my library. A

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Speaker 1: lot's been said about my dad's sharp wit. But my

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Speaker 1: two personal favorite off the cuff lines of his weren't

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Speaker 1: said on television or even in front of a proper audience.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there was only one single person present. One

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Speaker 1: was a doctor, the other was an eleven year old me.

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Speaker 1: Now these lines don't have a place in today's proceedings,

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Speaker 1: as both edged towards being a little risquay, good morning, Archbishop.

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Speaker 1: But what I love about them is that they were

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Speaker 1: said to people who weren't going to further his career

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Speaker 1: or write a great review. Dad purely wanted to pop

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Speaker 1: the tension of an awkward situation and see another human

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Speaker 1: being light up and laughed. I honestly believed that that

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Speaker 1: was the thing, apart from his family, that made Dab

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Speaker 1: the happiest. It was a superpower, and he always tried

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Speaker 1: to use it for good. Over the last ten years,

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Speaker 1: while I've lived abroad, Dad and I would play our

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Speaker 1: conversational songs over zoom and FaceTime, tools that allowed me

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Speaker 1: to connect and in a way, reconnect with my whole family,

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Speaker 1: but especially with Dad. Everyone knows he was a great entertainer,

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Speaker 1: but what a lot of people don't know about Dad

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Speaker 1: is that he wouldn't just be around for the laughs.

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Speaker 1: Those close to him experienced how he'd show up in

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Speaker 1: the tough times too, no one more than me. One

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Speaker 1: final conversation a few days before we lost him was

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Speaker 1: different from the usual, and we both knew it. The

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Speaker 1: change was never directly stated, but we assumed the stories

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Speaker 1: and the laughs and just said how much we loved

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Speaker 1: each other. During this wonderful chat, my mother was pottering

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Speaker 1: around in the background, adding her two cents every down

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Speaker 1: again and doing lovely things for Dad as usual. At

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Speaker 1: one point, she took something into another room, and the

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Speaker 1: second she left, Dad leaned into the phone camera and whispered,

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Speaker 1: I think she's poisoning my food, Matthew. Well, we both

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Speaker 1: laughed and laughed until we cried. Although given why we're

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Speaker 1: here today, Mum, perhaps I should have taken him more seriously.

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Speaker 1: Well Now, as much as Dad would have loved that tag,

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Speaker 1: it really doesn't work, does it, Mum, Because you know

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Speaker 1: there's not a lioness in the world who loved, supported

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Speaker 1: and cherished her lion as much as you did. Dad.

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Speaker 1: You two were a team are a team, and even

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Speaker 1: though your partner isn't on stage anymore, the show goes on,

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Speaker 1: and you'll be okay, mainly because you'll have Lauren's ninety

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Speaker 1: seven children to take care of you. Truly, though, his

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Speaker 1: grandkids became Dad's new favorite thing on the planet, and

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Speaker 1: Sam Eva, Lola, Monte, Perla and Albie gave him a

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Speaker 1: new lease of life. In his seventh and eighth decade,

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Speaker 1: Dad was the ultimate host, or, as he preferred to

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Speaker 1: be called, compare never present her, a term he loathed.

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Speaker 1: And if he was here today he would be entertaining, moving,

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Speaker 1: sincere and mischievous, expertly saying all the feelings of awkwardness

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Speaker 1: and embarrassment, saving them from us. And that's how he'd

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Speaker 1: want this day to be, with a wink, not a tear.

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Speaker 1: So with that in mind, I'll get out while the

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Speaker 1: going's good and say to the man himself Albert Watson, Wilberforce,

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Speaker 1: Thomas Patrick, Belmont, Francis Archibald Kenneth, John Aloysius, Peter Newton,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to really miss jamming with you, mate. He

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Speaker 1: is looking at you, kid, and now this letter I'm

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Speaker 1: reading on behalf of lovely Lauren. I'm not sure where

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Speaker 1: to even begin, or if I could ever put into

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Speaker 1: words how much I loved my dad, from the love

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Speaker 1: I felt as a child to watching him laugh and

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Speaker 1: play games with my own children. He made us feel

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Speaker 1: so special and always brought laughter and fun to everything

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Speaker 1: we did. When I was a little girl, I always

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Speaker 1: felt I was so lucky I had two dads, one

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Speaker 1: on TV and one at home. He was the same funny, warm,

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Speaker 1: wonderful person everyone watched on TV, but at home he

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Speaker 1: was even better, and I am so grateful for the

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Speaker 1: relationship I had with him. He was such a fun dad,

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Speaker 1: and one of my favorite games with him as a

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Speaker 1: little girl was called Donald Duck. He would put me

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Speaker 1: on his shoulders and a run around the house, yelling

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Speaker 1: Donald every time we came to a doorway and I'd

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Speaker 1: dropped down and yelled back Duck. You'd always involved squealing

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Speaker 1: and hysterical laughter and was so much fun until one

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Speaker 1: day he got distracted and forgot to yell Donald. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: Mum never let us play this game again, but it

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Speaker 1: is a memory I'll have forever, and I can still

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Speaker 1: hear the laughter from us. Both family always came first

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Speaker 1: for Dad, and he included us in everything he did.

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Speaker 1: He and Mum were a team, and he wanted all

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Speaker 1: of us around and to be part of everything he did.

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Speaker 1: He always made me feel very special, and I knew

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Speaker 1: I could always count on him. When my car broke

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Speaker 1: down on the freeway and I had to wait hours

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Speaker 1: for a tow truck, Dad raced to be by my

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Speaker 1: side and wait with me with a diet coke in

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Speaker 1: hand for us both. That was him. He was always

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Speaker 1: there when I needed him, and he was always interested

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Speaker 1: in everything I did, no matter how small. He was

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Speaker 1: the greatest dad I could have wished for, and he's

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Speaker 1: been such a huge part of my children's lives as well.

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Speaker 1: We had so many special times together, and I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad that he had the chance to get to know

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Speaker 1: Sam and Eva, Lola, Monte Perla and Albee. They loved

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Speaker 1: Poppy so much and his love for them was very

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Speaker 1: clear to see. He spent hours playing games with them.

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Speaker 1: His name in the games for years has been Bill Brown,

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Speaker 1: and they played everything from mums and dads to school.

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Speaker 1: His favorite games were hospitals and hotels and you know,

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Speaker 1: Mum and I wondered why it was always those two

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Speaker 1: games he liked the best, and then we realized it

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Speaker 1: was because all he had to do was lie on

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Speaker 1: the bed and rest while the kids played around him.

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Speaker 1: The kids also loved doing concerts for him, and he

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Speaker 1: was their most captive audience. He even got the job

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Speaker 1: of introducing them, and I'd laugh to myself, thinking they

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Speaker 1: have no idea how lucky they were. Even put his

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Speaker 1: good voice on as if he was doing the logies.

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Speaker 1: He loved it, and I could tell it was one

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Speaker 1: of his favorite gigs ever. Although the past year was hard,

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Speaker 1: he was so brave through it all. None of us

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Speaker 1: wanted to see him suffer anymore, but we also couldn't

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Speaker 1: imagine life without him. He was so well looked after

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Speaker 1: by him wonderful doctors and nurses of the Epworth. And

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Speaker 1: we're also very grateful for O'Neill House, where Dad spent

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Speaker 1: his last few weeks. They looked after him so well

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Speaker 1: and it was a lovely place to be. Even though

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Speaker 1: there weren't the circumstances we wanted, he was happy to

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Speaker 1: be there with Mum by his side. I will hold

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Speaker 1: close those memories of sitting outside with him, watching the

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Speaker 1: kids play around the fishpond and singing songs with him.

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Speaker 1: We were lucky they allowed us to be with him

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Speaker 1: so much and it felt like the next best thing

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Speaker 1: to having him at home. Saying goodbye has been heartbreaking

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Speaker 1: for us all, especially Mum. They loved one another so much,

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Speaker 1: and I know how he waited until she left the

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Speaker 1: room to take his last breath, because while she was

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Speaker 1: with him and have gone. My beautiful Dad will be

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Speaker 1: with us forever in our hearts and memories, but life

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Speaker 1: will never be the same without him. I love you, Dad,