Gary Lightbody has paid a touching tribute to his father, who passed away shortly before Christmas.
The Snow Patrol frontman admitted that he doesn’t “know what life looks like without him” after holding a funeral for dad, Jack, on Christmas Eve.
Lightbody took to Instagram to post a lengthy tribute to his father, who had been suffering from dementia towards the end of his life.
“He was the funniest man I’ve ever known,” he wrote. “Even in the depths of his dementia he could still be as sharp and hilarious as ever at times.
“He was also the most social person I ever knew. He could talk to anyone. I’m in introvert so I’m shy around strangers but he would walk into a room full of strangers and within ten mins know all their names and their stories and be having the craic with them all. It was a gift he never lost.
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“We would walk into a restaurant and as we were being shown to our table he’d be talking to everyone at every other table we passed: ‘what are you having there, that looks good’ and he’d be standing there chatting while we’d already be at our table waiting on him probably rolling our eyes. Ha. What a legend.
“All my friends that knew him loved him. The messages I got when they found out were of heartbreak but also each of my friends have been telling me stories of how my dad made them laugh and I’m so glad that all of people’s memories of him seem to be of happy times.”
Lightbody went on to praise his mum and sister for looking after his dad and couldn’t speak more highly of the staff of Oakmont Care Home, who took care of him for the past eight months.
He wrote: “I don’t know what life looks like without him, I can’t even comprehend it, but he’ll be in my heart and all my family’s hearts for the rest of our lives.”
