The last text message I ever received from my Dad

The other night on a whim I decided to scroll through my WhatsApp messages from my Dad. It’s been four years since he passed away and I’ve only looked at his messages a handful of times. As I began to scroll through this time, I realised I had missed his very last birthday. I was living in Brisbane at the time and he told me in a text that he had pizza with the family at his house in Sydney. I wasn’t there and although it saddened me to realise this, I was really happy in Queensland, I was doing readings at the Crystal Store, I was living in a beautiful home in North Lakes and for the first time in my life I felt on purpose. 

Dad had once told me his most memorable birthday was when he took a road trip to see me when I was living in Byron Bay. We visited Mount Warning and later that day we sat on my veranda while the sunset descended behind the mountain and we had one of the most deep and profound conversations I can remember. He was relaxed, he was happy, he was free. When he returned home, he left a yellow post-it note on my desk saying “Dearest Lu, thank you so much for my best birthday ever! Lots of love, Dad xo.”

I didn’t miss his best birthday ever, so perhaps it’s not about being there for the last time, but it’s those memorable moments in between, the important ones, the post-it note worthy ones. 

I didn’t have the easiest relationship with my Dad, I know he loved me to the best of his abilities but it also came with trials and times of disconnect. I feel much closer to him in spirit, I feel him now as I write these words and I feel the love that he wasn’t able to fully express in human form but that was always there, beneath the facade that society instilled in his generation. 

I don’t cry about my Dad often because he still feels so close. He is there anytime I call my grandma and it goes to message bank, his voice telling me I had reached his mother and to leave a message. He is there anytime Alfie smiles up at me with that wide open grin. He is there when he sends me signs in numbers, song lyrics and birds and when he visits me in my dreams. He was there during Alfie's labour in those final hours as I begged his spirit to help me. Sometimes he feels so real that I once went to call him to update him on my day, only to realise he wasn’t alive.

I have no doubt that he is at peace now and that he is quietly orchestrating things behind-the-scenes so that I live a happy and fulfilling life. I feel his regrets and I feel his sorrow but I also feel his peace.

The very last text message he ever sent to me are the first words I now see when I open his chat. He wrote these words at 7:31 pm on the 29th of June 2019, five days before he ended up on life support. Two words that will continue to ring true, two words I can still hear his spirit echoing to me to this day. 

All’s good. xo