The last time I saw my father, we were saying goodbye at the airport in Jacksonville. He told me not to cry as this was not goodbye. We would see each other again.

The next time I was in that airport, he was no longer in existence.

I wonder at times, do people who are going to die know? At the back of the mind, a niggling little thought, “Soon. Soon, I will be no more.” Or does it come as just as big a shock as it does to us, the left behind. The thirty-five year old child crying at the airport trying to be a “big girl” so her father would be proud.

Did I know? Somewhere at the back of my mind. But, I always cry at goodbyes – especially cross Atlantic, cross the Irish Sea, cross an ocean somewhere away from me.