James Alfred Gale - Online Memorial Website

This memorial website was created to remember our dearest James Alfred Gale who was born in Sydney Australia on June 8th, 1932 and passed away on September 6th, 2007. You will live forever in our memories and hearts.

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We lost dad one week after he had heart surgery.

Most of this year has been taken up with trips back and forward to Brisbane to the Prince Charles Hospital for tests and scans and assessments.Finally he got the call to go in for the operation......

So we set off at 5 am for the trip down.When we arrived he practically hopped,skipped and jumped into that hospital, he was keen to have the surgery over with so he could resume his life,he was confident it would go well,if he was at all concerned he did not show it.He was 75 years old but you would not have known it,in fact after his death we all realised that he was an old man and none of us had even noticed that it happened right in front of us.

We left him at the hospital in good spirits and I can still see him standing there waving us off,I had no idea that would be the last time I saw him that way,standing tall and quite happy.

We rang him that night and he was still in good spirits ,he'd just had his dinner and contrary to the usual reports about hospital food, he said it was very nice, he had ,had roast pork and veges and apple pie and custard.He sounded quite content.He told us that they were coming for him at 5.30 am the following morning to take him to surgery.We knew the surgery would take 4 to 5 hours to complete so we arrived at the hospital around 10.30 am to find he was out of surgery and in intensive care.The surgeon came out to see us and he assured us all had gone well and that he'd come through the operation with "flying colours"......

The next day we got the call....sometime during or after the surgery my dad had suffered a massive stroke,the damage was catastrophic,he would never recover and there was no hope of rehabilitation .The damage was too great.

It was decided after a family meeting to let him go...a week later he passed,peacefully and snoring his head off,while his twin brother spoke to him on the phone he took his last breath.He was surrounded by his family ,we held his hands for that whole week reluctant to leave him for more than a few minutes at a time we knew his life was coming to a close and we played all his favourite songs and he passed while Come Fly With Me was playing.He let us know when he would pass, but that's another story....lets just say some very strange things happened over that week that could not be put down to coincidence.

We miss him terribly and we are so sad that he did not get the outcome that he had hoped for,he loved life and he wanted to stay as long as he could.This rang true when the surgeon who dad had spoken to at a consultation before his surgery told us that all of the risks involved with this kind of operation ,and there were many, the odds were against him  because of his age ,had been explained to dad and he had been willing to take the risk anyway,because he wanted to live.

The thing is, he neglected to tell us,no doubt he didn't want an argument about it,he had made up his mind to go through with it and as far as he was concerned he was going to be fine, no need to worry us.This is something that has upset us somewhat. none of us were the least bit prepared for his death.

Anyone who has lost a loved one in this way knows the pain it causes,please light a candle for our dad and for your loved ones.

We love you dad,rest peacefully now.