It’s nearly 25 years since our father died. Nearly 25 years since he struggled for his last breaths.

But it’s gonna be another year or two before we have a physical reminder of him, before we get his ashes to do with what we will.

Maybe we’ll scatter them from the top of Devonport’s Mount Victoria, where we spent many happy years just through the back gate of our home. Or maybe from the top of North Head, where each Anniversary Day he made the pilgrimage to watch spinnaker spectacles from the best vantage point.

Those were the days before his knees gave out, his prostate embarrassed him and the regularity of insulin jabs dictated what was left of his life. The days when he could see what he was looking at.

We had a damn good knees-up for him at the family home, standing room only – no room for anyone to lie in state. Just as well, cause we didn’t have his body.

Dad donated his body to “medical science”. It was a bit of a shock. Mum told us what he wanted as we stood vigil, spilling out of the crowded hospital room. Our whole family reunited from across the globe within a hurried 48 hours.

It was news to me. A joke surely? What possible use could an 82-year-old body be? Particularly when the eyes, ears and heart had given out, the kidneys had seen much better days and the leg ulcer that prompted his admission to hospital remained unhealed.

Turned out Dad thought his body would be of more use to science than it would ever be rotting in the ground. And besides, he couldn’t bear the thought of having a funeral with a clergyman, coffin and all that carry-on.

I had to be convinced. But how can you deny a last request? Hanging on to his body seemed selfish. Only for our sake.

Did no body mean no funeral? No shell over which to wring the last shreds of emotion. It’d be anathema to Mãori. Wouldn’t happen, surely. You can bet there’s not too many cuzzie bros keeping him company these days.

We had to agree as a family.

I farewelled him soon after. John Beaumont Foster Gundry. Playwright. Author of 200 broadcast plays, serials and documentaries. Who first dramatised Sargeson’s work for radio in half-hour plays. The Chief Proofreader at the New Zealand Herald, for 25 years. The man I loved, my father, my mentor.

When he moaned to me, as if only for my ears, “I’m not here, I’m not here,” it made it easier somehow. I knew then the man that once was, was no longer. The soldier, who after serving in the Second World War, came home and never talked about it or went to an RSA or attended an ANZAC service; he just wanted those six years to remain silent in his mind.

This fine man, who in the never-ending summers of the '60s breast-stroked with me on his back out to boats moored off Duders Beach, was already a shell. This near-blind man of few words but immense acuity was no longer able to read the finest of journalism and literature nor implore me to do the same.

Dad went off across the harbour bridge when he died. I passed his new dwelling place and headed south.

It was a strange week. No body meant no urgency for a funeral. We took our time. Organised it to suit. It was weird not having a body. Weird not doing the ashes to ashes bit, completing the cycle. But it was a good day.

Odd though. Knowing he was just over the harbour, in the hallowed rooms of the university’s School of Medicine. Mum’s friend Bill was in there too, so at least he had some company.

Wonder if we could get an appointment to see him. Walk in, say hi. Tell him our news. He’d look the same. More or less. I guess. Best not to think too much of that. But anyway it would only be his shell. Not his essence. Not what made him who he was.

We just waved as we drove past.

The med school people were great. Assured us Dad’s body would be treated with dignity and respect during anatomical examinations. Said how important his precious gift was. How the proper functioning of the med school depended on such bequests. Well, how else can aspiring doctors and surgeons become intimately acquainted with bodies? How else can they physically see the effects of long-term diabetes and use it in their research?

I feel proud of what he did. But when we visit Auckland it’s still strange knowing he’s just a stone’s throw away. Strange we can’t visit, share a meal, toast our health. It’s like his life’s been extended. Like he’s not really dead.

Getting his ashes back in a year or so will let us put the last nail in the coffin.

He died so others can live. Sounds a bit religious to me. He’d laugh.

After I walked out of his hospital room that September Sunday, I never saw him again. But he still surrounds me with his love, his insight and knowing chuckle.

Somehow, I can’t help feeling he got the last laugh. A final “up you too” to the world since the family didn’t get lumbered with the cost of a burial.

And he’ll be laughing still about his little secret. A fictitious entry in the Nelson section of Wise’s New Zealand guide that he and a mate inserted in the '70s after their boss riled them. It reads:

UPUTU Local name associated with the finger of sand protruding from Bush End Point at the termination of Farewell Spit. Name means literally: u: to reach a limit; putu: to lie in a heap: but possibly a transliteration.

He’ll be chuffed his secret is out.