The day my Dad, Andrew Downes died

Andrew Downes

Blog by Paula Downes

Posted: 16/01/2026

My Dad died on January 2nd 2023. My mum, sister Anna and I, were all with him on January 1st in hospital. He had gone into hospital on Christmas Day and went very slowly through A&E where they struggled to work out what was wrong with him. They tried everything they could to help him to get better. The hospital was jam-packed and we were told we couldn’t visit for several days due to Covid and flu on the ward. We are very grateful to my Dad’s carer, Victoria, who looked after him so beautifully over those days. 

On January 1st, they phoned us up to say we could go in and see him and that he was very poorly. I was very grateful that my husband and daughters could go to my in-laws where we had planned to spend New Year.

I was shocked to see how poorly my Dad had become and knew the end was near.

It was a harrowing day but we had the chance to tell him we loved him. It was surreal that I found myself putting my singing teaching skills into action to try to help him to relax his jaw, in order for him to stop biting down on his suction tube.

I woke up with a jolt in the early hours of January 2nd in my parents’ house and remember having a strong sense that my Dad was shrinking away from me very fast, like when you wake up from a dream and try to pull it back but can’t. It was as though he was shrinking under a pool of water, and I desperately wanted to pull him back. I had that vision over and over again in the months after, as I would try to fall asleep at night. I still want to pull him back. When the phone rang at 5 something in the morning, and the nurse had to tell me he had died because my Mum was already up and in the shower, I felt as though I had already known. I then had to deliver the news to my Mum and then phone up my sister, and we all went to the hospital to say our final goodbyes. The nurses were so kind and were obviously very upset too. Afterwards, we sat dazed in the hospital Costa, sharing the news with close family over the phone and then on Facebook and over email. The barrage of beautiful messages we received back were of monumental comfort to us as we made our way through that day, driving from church to crematorium, trying to work out funeral details, crying here and there as it hit us afresh. We took Victoria, my Dad’s carer with us, because we didn’t want to leave her alone and felt she should be with us. She had been his carer for several years, throughout the whole of Covid, so she was very upset.

It was a beautifully sunny, crisp January day, culminating in a spectacular sunset. We kept ending up on the stunning country lanes of Worcestershire as we travelled. We were convinced that my Dad had taken us on his favourite routes, and I had visions of him, having escaped his body, flying through the sky, over the hills, shouting “weeeeeee”! We kept seeing amazing clouds and we were sure it was him, as in these words of a Native American poem that he set for his Oratorio New Dawn:

I may take the form of a cloud;
I wish I could be a cloud.
When a cloud comes this way, you will say. “That, that is he!”

This was actually the last piece he listened to before he died. Anna managed to locate an iPad and headphones for him to help him through his difficult passage. It was an ideal thing for him to listen to, about the Spirit passing to the next life, and he loved this multitrack recording I had made of this with my husband David. My Mum chose it to be played when my Dad’s coffin was brought in at the start of his funeral, another stunningly beautiful crisp, February day.

My Dad was a very special person. I did know I loved him a lot but it has been brought into very sharp focus. I didn’t know lots of others felt the same way about him. I thought I felt that way because he was my Dad. The outpouring of love in the messages we received made me realise he was a special person to a great many other people. 

I wrote the following words soon after he died, imagining that I might speak at the funeral. As it turned out, I sang and Anna gave a beautiful eulogy. 

Click here to read the words I wrote: My lovely Dad, Andrew Downes

Blog by Paula Downes