I CAN'T pretend that I knew Bishop Edward Daly well. Growing up in Derry, he was always the iconic 'Bloody Sunday Bishop', but for two weeks in April 2014 he was the centre of my family's world.
As chaplain of the Foyle Hospice he was there to welcome my father as he was admitted to the facility on Derry's Culmore Road for what we didn't realise were to be his final days with us.
Nurses told my father as soon as he settled in that the bishop would visit and he was true to his word – he was a constant presence with my father and mother and the rest of us when we visited.
Whether he was praying with my father, or gently administering the last rites, he was making chit-chat about how he wasn't actually from Derry but Fermanagh.
My two sisters bumped into him in the corridor and got a little flustered as they were unsure how to properly address him.
Later in his room my father, despite his voice being weakened from the ravages of motor neurone disease, pulled his oxygen mask off and asked jokingly: "So what do we call you?"
And the bishop explained, as he must have done countless times: "Technically it's Your Grace, but some people call me bishop, some father, but people in Derry call me Eddie," he added with almost a roll of his eyes.
Then, with impeccable and almost comic timing, an aunt of mine came into the room.
"Och, hello Eddie."
But of course it wasn't just my family who received such attention. He visited the bedside of every single patient, some several times a day, to provide prayer and comfort.
He also celebrated Mass for patients and families every Sunday. Even seriously ill patients were wheeled into the hospice chapel, and he greeted them all by name and created such a special atmosphere.
The last day I spent with my daddy was at the hospice Mass, where he'd been perfectly preened with a little help from the nurses in his Sunday best.
My daddy died the following Friday which happened to be Good Friday – I'd planned to drive from Belfast again that Sunday to attend hospice Mass with him but it wasn't to be.
Bishop Daly was there and held our hands as we saw my father in the hospice chapel. He stood with several nurses outside the hospice as my father made his final journey home.
And just four months later in the hospice, I held my uncle's hand as Bishop Daly administered the Last Rites and provided him with all the care and compassion which he'd shown to my father and countless others before them.
The last time I saw Bishop Daly was at the Foyle Hospice Mass on Christmas Day 2015.
He was little older and had slowed down considerably in the year and a half since I had lost my daddy.
But amid the hospital beds and all the Christmas decorations, he still managed to bring a little joy and happiness to the hospice patients in their final days and comfort to families like mine still grieving their loss.
