It is a year today since my wonderful husband Andrew died. I’ve spent a long time thinking what I should write to mark the year. I considered writing about what a hard year it’s been or how hard grief is, or the standard cliches about the fact it feels like yesterday but also feels like a lifetime ago or about how much I desperately miss Andrew every moment of every day and desperately wish he was here… Although all these things are true, I decided none would be a fitting tribute
Instead, I’m just going to share the tribute I wrote and read for Andrew at his thanksgiving service last year. Warning in advance - it’s rather long. It was my very best attempt at a summary of my favourite person in the world so I think it’s reasonable to share it again a year later…
Andrew often played at weddings and funerals. When he returned home, I always asked the same questions. From a wedding I’d ask ‘well, did the bride look lovely.’ To which Andrew almost always replied ‘Yes, but not as lovely as you.’ Or occasionally he did say ‘no she was a minger.’
After a funeral I’d say ‘did they sound like a nice guy?’ And sometimes the answer would be yes and he’d tell me a bit about them. Or else he’d say ‘you know, they didn’t say much about them.’ We both made the pact, that whoever would die first, we’d do our best to give a fitting tribute to the other at their funeral. It is impossible to sum up 32 years in a few minutes but my husband Andrew was a talented, funny, kind, brave, faithful, unfailingly polite, loving gentlemanly guy and I’m going to do my best to tell you about why.
Andrew was born nearly 2 weeks early on the 13th April 1987. Many have commented that was the first and last time he was every early for anything. I actually asked Bill to start the service 5 minutes late today as a little tribute to Andrew.
Andrew’s mum Lynda has always told me that Andrew was a ‘perfect’ child. She genuinely could only think of one occasion in his entire childhood when he misbehaved. I always admired her selective memory. In all honestly though, I think he really was pretty good. He was incredibly bright and Lynda and Wesley used to enjoy showing off his skill with numbers. They used to persuade him to recite odd numbers, or phone numbers, or tell them what time it was when he was 3 years old. Our little boy Joel has exactly the same bright talent with numbers and my dad said to Andrew recently ‘Andrew, he definitely has your brain.’ Andrew ever the one for a macabre joke replied ‘well I hope not entirely!’
Andrew was not always perfect of course, but he was clever with his imperfections so they were not always noticed. Andrew loved his little sister Judith from as soon as she was born, but he told me on multiple occasions one of the reasons he enjoyed having her so much, was that she was delightfully easy to wind up.
He reminded me recently of a childhood story of the whole Thompson family in the car. Andrew was talking on a pretend phone in the back seat. Judith asked who he was talking to, to which Andrew.’ replied ‘the moon.’ Judith quickly exclaimed ‘oh Andrew, please may I talk to the moon?’ Andrew thought for a second before replying... ‘no.’
Judith persisted for several minutes begging Andrew to let her talk to the moon, before she tried a different tack ‘fine then, I’ll call the moon myself.’ Andrew quick as a flash came back ‘but you don’t know the moons phone number.’ Judith realised that Andrew was right. He was the number genius, the one who could remember phone numbers for everybody. Judith begged Andrew to give her the phone number for the moon, ‘please Andrew, please give the moons number, please please please!’ Before doing what any child would do in this situation: ‘’Mum, Andrew won’t give me the phone number for the moon!’ Lynda, tired of listening to the arguing turned around and said ‘For goodness sake Andrew, give your sister the phone number for the moon!!’
Andrew enjoyed music from a young age and often told me about being taken to countless brass band contests and concerts. It was much to his fathers dismay therefore that he decided to take up the clarinet and the piano instead of any brass band instrument. Andrew was quietly talented. When he was in P5 he decided to arrange a little piece of music for some other musicians in his class just for fun. His dad explained to him what keys the different instruments were in and was able to transpose it correctly. I remember being so impressed with this when he told me-he said it was no big deal.
He didn’t get into his primary school choir when he first auditioned. When Lynda and Wesley asked him what he was asked to sing for the audition he couldn’t remember, but he was able to sit down at the piano hours later and play what the teacher had played on the piano for the audition!
It was through music Andrew met many of his life-long friends. He was in numerous choirs, orchestras, big bands, concert bands throughout his teenage years. It always gave him something to do and gave his parents and grandparents something to go to.
Despite Andrews love for music, he followed his head rather than his heart and went on to do a maths degree at Queens.
But it was in the Ulster Youth Jazz Orchestra (UYJO) that he struck up a friendship with the very talented 17 year old vocalist. I got to know Andrew on a tour with UYJO after our mutual friend Sarah and he had a falling out. I would like to point out that both Andrew and our friend Sarah are two of the least argumentative people ever and so their extremely out of character falling out was clearly planned above, because all of a sudden I found myself chatting to him- alone.
Andrew was very skinny, brainy, quiet and unassuming, a little bit shy, always turned out perfectly with a crisp freshly ironed shirt and trousers- even his boxers and socks were ironed (don’t be shocked anyone, I didn’t find that out until later.) He hated getting mucky or dirty in any way, he never got into confrontations (expect with Sarah, and that was clearly meant to be) he forgave easily, he didn’t hold a grudge and was very rarely stressed. I was none of these things.
But somehow it worked pretty well. I persuaded Andrew not to worry so much about getting his feet wet in a puddle and he persuaded me I should occasionally iron my clothes. I taught Andrew to say the funny joke in his head out loud- people always enjoyed it, he taught me I shouldn’t say everything in my head out loud. I taught Andrew that biscuits have a lot of calories, he taught me- it was worth eating them anyway.
When we got home from our UYJO we had a series of ‘pre-dates’ in which I skived off school every Wednesday afternoon to go out for lunch with Andrew when he’d finished his lectures .
At the end of our first year of dating my a-level results dropped significantly and Andrew went from being top of the year in first year to just about scraping a 2/2 in second year. I think this was pretty strong evidence that our first year of dating was successful.
When I left school and got into drama college, I made the tough decision to move to London and start 3 years of a long distance relationship. We worked really hard to keep it together. (It helped that Andrew came over on lots of surprise trips. The best was when he dressed up in a disguise and sat on the tube to meet me with a fake beard, moustache, and crazy glasses. He even borrowed a coat not to give it away.) Andrew lived briefly in London while I was there. Even though it was brief it was one of his favourite times in his life. He had very little work but it paid well so he could get by. He led the music in a church there and that was the first time he’d done that and he realised how much he enjoyed it. He was able to arrange all sorts of beautiful music for the choir to sing. He spent a lot of time with my sister Eppie playing Tetris duets on her electric piano, or making silly jokes that made us laugh. The three of us used to go to pizza express when it was 2-4-1 pizzas and we’d get 4 starters, pizzas and desserts between the 3 of us. It was a happy time. Andrew then got a job in Belfast and we both made the move back. We got engaged shortly after.
Andrew took me on a surprise trip to Paris to propose. He had put the ring in a Tesco bag so that if I happened to find it, I wouldn’t notice it was a ring. It did make the moment when he got down on one knee pretty funny, because rather than taking a ring from his pocket he took out a Tesco bag. It was bucketing with rain and the fact that he put his knee in a puddle, knowing his trousers would be wet for the rest of the day was what really showed me he loved me!
It sounds cheesy, but I can honesty say that our wedding day was the best day of my life.
While I loved being married, I confess, Andrew did occasionally drive me insane!
Firstly, he was easily distracted: When we weren’t long married, we went out for a cup of tea one night. (I should say, that was one of Andrew’s favourite things to do with me, his family and friends. He didn’t actually love tea that much but he loved the large sticky bun that came with it and the nice chat!) Anyway, As we were walking back to the car, we decided to play a trust game. One in which I would close my eyes and he would tell me which way to go. It was going swimmingly, until he saw someone across the street that he knew, stopped to wave at them and I walked into a lamppost!
Secondly, Andrew left everything to the last minute. When we did our first Christmas show he promised he would have the music all written in time. The show started at 8pm. Andrew was still printing pages at 7:58pm. He concluded he kept his promise because it was completed by 8pm.
He was extremely messy (Andrew called it creative,) he was a hoarder and threw nothing away (he called that sentimental) and when I gave off to him, he usually responded with a joke (he called that funny!)
We were at a wedding recently- Wally and Aimee’s, and Alistair Bill talked about Michelle Obama’s book. One chapter was called ‘becoming us.’ (She and Barak.) I realised how much Andrew and I had ‘become us’ - we’d grown to compliment each other. I sang, Andrew played the piano, I wrote words, Andrew wrote music, I arranged concerts, Andrew arranged the band, I cooked dinner, Andrew told me it was delicious. One of our all time favourite pastimes (this sounds a bit geeky) was for me to sing songs in the house and Andrew to play the piano. We covered every single genre - to varying degrees of success. It was a daily free concert for our very patient neighbours. Andrew told me every single day that he loved me and that I was beautiful. He forgave all my nagging, my stressing, my impatience. He made me laugh every day with some witty, cheeky comment or ridiculous joke. Andrew was a wonderful, loving, fun husband. I feel incredibly lucky to have had him.
Our greatest achievements were definitely our two beautiful boys. Joel came along in 2016 and Andrew was a brilliant dad. He used to carry Joel round for an hour or more at 2am to get him back to sleep after I’d fed him so that I could get some rest.
He loved playing the piano for Joel. They would play ‘zoom, zoom we’re going to the moon’ on repeat. There is a usually a countdown from 5. Andrew and Joel with the mutual love of music and maths instead would count down from an obscure number like 137!
Joel really loves to learn and Andrew was an excellent teacher. Our friend and regular babysitter Victoria (she’s training to be a doctor) told us one night that you measure blood pressure with a sphygmomanometer. Andrew literally couldn’t wait until Joel woke up in the morning so he could teach him how to spell this (bear in mind- he was at 2 at the time!) Andrew loved taking him out for tea, or to the playground or on the bus to see nanny. He loved reading stories to him and did all the voices.
Andrew prayed with him every night and always let Joel decide what they’d pray for. I used to love listening to the very interesting prayers. (Thank you God for doors, for the number 9, for jammy joeys etc.)
Freddie was the miracle baby we shouldn’t have. The doctors told us that chemotherapy usually causes infertility, especially in the short term. They explained that sometimes the cells do repair themselves but it takes years (and they told us Andrew wouldn’t have years.) I was devastated about that. Andrew was not. He told me on a very regular basis that he was sure we would have another. He was right. About this time last year I found out I was expecting. It shocked all Andrew’s doctors. Freddie arrived in June this year. He came facing up rather than down and in the water, so things looked a little blurry for a second. For any of you Harry Potter fans Andrew said (when he wasn’t quite out) he thought Freddie looked like Voldemort on the back of Professor Quirrel’s head. Andrew saw my expression when he described our baby looking like one of the most famous fictional bad guys in the world and he quickly changed his tune and said ‘He’s beautiful Ruthie.’ Andrew didn’t get as much time to get to know Freddie but our little miracle just smiled and cooed at Andrew so much. In the last weeks of Andrews life, even when he could barely lift his arms he always wanted Freddie to be placed on his chest. Andrew told me every single night without fail ‘I love Joel and then I love our boys so much.’
I feel so sad for them that they didn’t get more time with such a wonderful dad.
Andrew worked really hard in so many different places. He had done a PGCE in maths but not surprisingly it was music where he ended up doing most of his work. He taught in loads of different schools and I loved all the stories of the clever pupils, the funny pupils, the absolutely wick pupils! He accompanied choirs and conducted bands, he played music on school trips. He played saxophone in lots of wedding bands over the years and saw most of Ireland north and south going to all the different venues. He played in pit bands for shows, a clarinet quartet, orchestras, with touring artists and we did our own shows. Andrew always felt he hadn’t achieved much when it came to his work. But I have loved hearing in recent days of all the pupils he inspired and encouraged. He particularly loved St Domincs because the whole school took music seriously and considered art subjects to be of great importance. He also just thought it was great craic in there. He loved Phil Kids and he loved teaching sol-fa. (That’s do, ray me for anyone who doesn’t know.) It had certain hand signals for the different notes. For example… In Andrew’s last weeks in the hospice, even when he didn’t open his eyes, when there was something making a noise, Andrew would lift his hand and do the interval. Music was in was is soul!
Andrew is well known in Knockbreda and has led the music here for a number of years. Church music was undoubtedly his greatest passion. It combined his two favourite things, music and God. He never stopped thinking about how best to move the music forward. In the last few weeks before he went into the hospice, almost every moment Andrew was awake he wrote some more music. He’d written a new version of a Christmas carol and arranged it for our church orchestra. He desperately wanted to be here at Christmas to make it a reality.
Andrew was a very Godly man. He couldn’t remember the exact time or date he gave his life to Christ but he walked faithfully with him all his days. He demonstrated God in so many ways. His love, his forgiving attitude, his kindness, his inclusion of people likely to be left out, his patience, his acceptance of his suffering.
This brings me to what I’ll call ‘his cancer years.’ I debated whether to talk about this time because Andrew always said he hoped he wouldn’t be remembered as being ‘the saxophone guy who died really young.’
But-he taught me so much in these years.
When we heard Andrew’s diagnosis, he was not in the room. We cried out, we sobbed, we shook. It was one of the worst moments of my life. When we’d settled down, I went with the specialist nurse so she could speak to Andrew. When she told him the news Andrew’s exact response was ‘I thought it might be something like that. Fair enough.’ I think it’s fair to say, that was the attitude Andrew kept. He went through brain surgery, radio therapy, chemo therapy, immunotherapy, he had hundreds of blood tests, he lost a lot of weight, he put on a lot of weight, he took medicine, he took supplements, he wasn’t allowed to drive, he wore a strange magnetic cap on his head and people stared at him, he was sick and he was tired but- he was remarkably uncomplaining. I once said to him-do you ever think ‘why me?’ To which he replied ‘why not me?’
He believed that this was meant to be his path, there was a reason for it, even if he didn’t understand and he would walk it with God and God would give him the strength. Andrew was determined that even if he couldn’t manage any other work, he would play at church on a Sunday. I was telling Bill recently that one Sunday in July Andrew was feeling very unwell. I suggested I rang someone else to ask them to play. Andrew wasn’t keen. I said ‘Andrew, you have a brain tumour!’ He replied, in all seriousness ‘I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to miss church!’ He never stopped praying for a miracle. In one respect we did not get the miracle we prayed for. However, Andrew lived far longer than predicted and we were also told we would never have another child and our beautiful Freddie came along.
I have enjoyed reading cards, emails, texts and facebook messages about Andrew so much in recent days. There are a few things that have come out over and over again. Firstly, everyone liked Andrew, I don’t think he had a single enemy. He was incredibly courteous and polite at all times - even when he shouldn’t have been. He was seriously talented and really didn’t realise how much so. And finally his wit and humour!
If we were at a wedding I’d toast my husband. But instead I’ll say to Andrew - who I hope is listening up there, you’re one in a million and we’ll miss you so much!
Over and Out,
Ruth