Ian Spencer – My Dad, The Geeza

You may have noticed that I haven’t uploaded a new post for quite a while, so I thought I would sit down and take a moment to explain why.

Sadly, my dad, Ian Spencer, passed away from cancer in June. If this subject is a trigger to you, please do not continue reading, as I would hate to cause anyone any upset.

What Happened

My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer on his and my mum’s 25th wedding anniversary. We were told he had 12-18 months to live, but the cancer took over faster than we could have imagined. After only five short weeks, my wonderful, funny dad passed away surrounded by his family.

Sadly, we were not able to make any new memories after his diagnosis, as shortly after being diagnosed, he declined rapidly and spent a lot of time in and out of the hospital.

As you can imagine, his passing came as a massive shock to all of us.

What My Dad Was Like

My dad came into my life when I was 5. Technically he is my step-dad, but I would never refer to him like that. Back then, he was loud and shouty, and when he was in a strop, he would take himself off to bed and come back down a few hours later as if nothing had happened.

But that’s just the bad parts.

He was also funny, silly, brave, and the cleverest man I had ever met. I loved listening to his stories from the days before he met mum.

I remember his stories from when he went to boarding school and ran away. When he moved out when he was 15 and worked at a carnival. His days of going to see his beloved football team Brentford play. When he worked as security at Butlins.

I used to love sitting on the floor and listening to him talk about the old days. He got up to so much, yet I’m sure I only know a fraction of what he did. I tried to convince him to write his story down before he died. I told him that I would make millions from him. Unfortunately, he never got a chance, and now I have questions that I’ll never get the answer to.

He was so clever too. Now he’s gone, the IQ of our family has really dropped. We’ll never win a quiz again. The random knowledge that he had was impressive, especially history.

He was silly. He would hide potatoes in my shoes whenever I went to visit. In the winter, I would wear my boots, and you wouldn’t know there was a potato in there until your toes hit it. However, in the summer, you would find things like this:

And this:

He would pretend to slam doors as you walked through to scare you. If you were in the toilet and he was walking past, he would knock loudly. If he felt like things were too quiet or in a really intense part of a movie, he would shout or yell boo to scare everyone. Walking past bushes, he would pull off a bunch of leaves and throw them at you. You would find pegs attached to the back of your tops. He would poke you in the belly when you were least expecting it with his big old sausage fingers.

He had one of the loudest whistles that I had ever heard, and his singing at times could be so loud and tuneless. I used to tell him to shut up when he sang tunelessly, but a few weeks ago, my sister sent me a voice clip of our dad singing in the car, and I can’t stop listening to it.

He would always write ‘who cares?’ on Facebook on people’s birthdays. It used to really annoy me, but I’m going to miss that so much. He loved poker and Candy Crush (he was on level 2,488, in case you are interested).

And he absolutely adored his grandbabies.

One of the last things he said as my mum, sister and I walked around the corner at the hospital was ‘my girls’ with a lovely smile.

The Funeral

We held his funeral in July. It was 29℃, and everyone was sweating. It was such a lovely day, though. We cried, we laughed a lot, I ate my body weight in beige food, drank far too much Prosecco, and spent time with family.

Rather than traditional ‘funeral music’, we had Slade – Mama weer all crazee now as we walked in, The Beetles – Hey Jude for reflection, and The Time Warp as we exited. The Time Warp was the only song I ever saw my dad dance to.

And Now

And now I’m learning to live a life without the infamous Ian Spencer in my life. He was always the first person I turned to when I needed anything, like when a deer ran into the road and wrote off my KA. Our world is definitely a lot quieter and less silly without him in it.

It’s his birthday in August, and to celebrate me and most of my siblings and their partners will be getting tattoos. We’ve decided to go for ‘Who Cares??’ written in his handwriting. Expect to see pictures soon.

I know this post might seem a little all over the place, but I didn’t care about writing a post that focused on good SEO. I wanted something dedicated to my dad from the heart.

And now I’m going to leave you with the poem I wrote for my dad:

My heart is broken, I can’t stop the tears,

For it has come true, all of my fears.

You had to go and leave us, dad,

And that is why I am so sad.

We didn’t have long to say goodbye,

And now all I can do is cry and cry.

This is the price you pay to have love,

but I just can’t do it; I’ve had enough.

I feel so lost, I can’t stand this pain,

I keep asking why oh why? Again again.

I love you so much; I wanted you to stay,

But you were so tired, and that is okay.

Ian Spencer, you were a teaser,

And an absolute diamond geeza.

I feel so proud and ever so glad,

that I was able to call you my dad.

I love you old man, I always will,

but I’m going to have one huge therapy bill.