I didn’t wake up in the morning and mourn him, but my first thoughts were of him.

It has been four years and I still miss him. I wish I could hear his complaints about Irish politics, his interminable quest for knowledge, his bad jokes, the comical faces he’d pull when faced with what he considered nonsense.

I miss the only being on earth who called me Maiready.

My dad was a quiet man who lived for his family. A structural steel welder who could have made a career in the caring professions. A suspicious man who could turn his paranoia into drop-dead humour. A man whose virtual frequent flyer points far exceeded the distance he actually travelled in his life. A man who loved one woman all his adult life, even when she drove him mad.

I refer to him or things he taught me every day. My brother looks like him, my niece walks like him, my nephew is the new Him.

I remember his death in the same way I remember his life: with love and recognition and respect.

I hope one day to be half the man he was.