Colin Ray Gosling was my father's partner for nearly 20 years after our parents divorced. He was my twin sister's and my "adopted father" from when we were about 5 years old. He adored us both and treated us as his own. We looked forward to spending o…
Colin Ray Gosling was my father's partner for nearly 20 years after our parents divorced. He was my twin sister's and my "adopted father" from when we were about 5 years old. He adored us both and treated us as his own. We looked forward to spending our weekends with him. Colin was a trained hairdresser and later with the encouragement of our dad, went on to become a nurse and become a Deputy Director of Nursing in a Sydney Hospital. He was much loved by his work colleagues and anyone who knew him. He was always the life of the party and would constantly have us in stitches with his humour.Our Dad told us Colin had cancer as he did not want us to know that he had AIDS. Even though we were in our early 20's he still didn't want us to know. This was at a time in Australia where "AIDS" was an unknown and most people were uneducated about the illness.Colin became very unwell and was in and out of hospital over time and my sister and I spent most of our spare time with him. In his final trip to hospital he went to his workplace knowing that his staff would look after him. Many close friends and family came and said their goodbyes. We put our feelings into a card and read them to him as we knew he could hear us. We then told him it was ok to go whenever he was ready. We told him that dad and us would be ok.Colin passed away on his 43rd birthday - 16 April 1993 and we were told that day he had AIDZ by his sister, even though we knew deep down that that was what he had. We just needed confirmation.I know in my heart that Colin was so very proud of my sister and I and he would have been the most wonderful grandfather to my 2 children. Dad passed away Xmas 2015 and we know that they are together once again.Always in our hearts forever ❤️ “ 📖 by Fiona Stanley
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