My Dad’s Burial
Music: Time to Say Goodbye
Artist: Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman
Shared by: Christina for her Dad
“My Dad was a man who always played by the rules, but on warm summer nights, with all the windows and doors open, he would turn it up so loud that the whole neighbourhood could hear.”
My Dad recently passed away after a long battle with Lewy Body Dementia. On April 20, 2025 we held a small, natural burial in a green cemetery. He was laid to rest in a simple shroud, without a coffin.
Before we began to fill in his grave with soil, I played ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ — a song he loved before he got sick. We used to blast it together in an unabashedly joyous way. My Dad was a man who always played by the rules, but on warm summer nights, with all the windows and doors open, he would turn it up so loud that the whole neighbourhood could hear.
His dementia took him from us little by little and I had a long time to grieve him before he was truly gone. Playing that song at his graveside brought back the full weight of that slow, ongoing loss — and in doing so, gave me permission to finally grieve all of it.