My cousin Kevin and myself both got up and spoke. I just wanted to share some things about my dad and speak about my relationship with him. It was short, as I didn’t want to be there for long. Here’s what I wrote and read:

From as early as I can remember I went everywhere my dad went when he wasn’t on the road working. If he wasn’t on the road he could usually be found at the racetrack or the bowling alley usually with me in tow. Once I was old enough I would go trucking with him in the summer. I loved to spend time with my dad and I missed him a lot when he was away. I remember sometimes when I was young I would cry when he would go to get into his truck. And I remember watching out the window vigilantly when he was expected home and running out to his truck to greet him.

My father had many good friends. He was very social and outgoing and had a playful joyous personality. He loved being around people, his friends and family.

He loved and enjoyed his grandchildren, although just a few years after his first grandson was born he became sick. He started to show signs of Alzheimer’s disease in 1998, and it’s been a long hard road since then. Our family has been grieving his loss for several years now as we watched helplessly as the disease took more and more of him away from us.

Once it became to difficult too take care of him at home my mother regrettably had to place him in a special care home. He lived at ProTem Heath Services care home for the last 15 months of his life and his personality shone through right til the end. He would tease and playfully torment the staff. He always made them laugh. I believe he was happy there.

I was going through photo Albums the other day to put together a collection for the slideshow. Pictures from when he was a baby, through every decade of his life. It brought back so many good memories. The pictures of my baptism, I had never seen them before, and he had such a big smile and was looking at me with so much love. My father was never a man to show a lot of emotion but when I look back at the pictures it’s hard to find one of him that I’m not in too, and when I look at the ones when I was little I can see in his face how much he loved and cherished me. I love you too dad and I miss you so much.

I want to thank everyone who helped us over the last few years, thank-you to anyone who went to visit him even though he didn’t remember you, it meant a lot to my mother and I. Thank you to the staff from ProTem for your excellent care, I can’t think of a better place for him to have been. You are truly angels.

And thank you everyone for coming today to celebrate my fathers life with us.

Cedric Nison Colpitts

1938-2008