Nigel John Kirschstein

09/01/1957 - 06/11/2021

My Dad died in hospital, with myself and my Mum by his bedside after contracting COVID-19. The chemotherapy he'd had a couple of years prior to fight off his Mantle Cell, Nonhodgkins Lymphona had unfortunately weakened his immune system too much.

A Small Poem

I didn’t see you at Christmas, but thought I might
Get the chance to see you again, on Bonfire night

And I wonder what I could do or say
If we had been given, just one more day

Could I thank you for not causing scenes
The night you had to pick me up from Milton Keynes

Could you maybe stay at the table and chill
Let me instead, sneak away to pay the bill

Could I thank you for passing on a sense of what's fair
And thank you more, for not passing on your hair

Could we have one more day before you rest?
A husband, a dad, a friend. And one of the best.

One one day to make us laugh and inspire us
One last time to exclaim "chucking spiders"

A Small Explanation

Two of my Dad's expressions, which I often heard him say, are worked into this poem. The first "chucking spiders", was often said after seeing something messy, or surprising. Whilst "chucking" is a child friendly substitute for a common swearword, I never really did find or figure out what the spiders bit meant. But I'm fairly certain he picked this expression up at British rail.

His phrase for saying good bye, was "if I don't see you at Christmas, I'll see you on bonfire night". To him it just meant he wasn't sure when he'd see you again, but he'd see you at some point. For me though, this phrase has wound up with hidden meaning.
I didn't see him last Christmas, because of COVID being so rampant in the country at the time. For the first time ever I didn't go home to see my parents. And on bonfire night, we had an update from the hospital that his condition had been improving slightly over the previous 48 hours. I thought that maybe, there was a small hope he'd pull through. But the morning after we got the call from the consultant that his condition had crashed overnight, and he wasn't going to make it after all.

And he actually did pick me up from Milton Keynes once when I missed my stop at Stoke. He didn't utter a single word of complaint.