Nigel Featherstone's touching tribute to father Jack Featherstone, a popular Braidwood painter

But early last Saturday morning, Goulburn writer Nigel Featherstone had world-altering news to share, that almost needed to be told to others to help him make sense of it.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, in Braidwood, my father died peacefully in his sleep. He was a week shy of his 94th birthday.

Then, in a thread, Nigel recounted his last visit with his dad. Simply. Sparingly. Beautifully.

A few days earlier, I visited him at the Braidwood hospital, which is new and partly the town's nursing home, where he had been living for some months. Outside the entrance, I rang him on his mobile.

It was a warm, clear, still morning. "Give me 10 minutes to put on my shoes," he said, "and I'll see you there". A short while later, he shuffled out. He suggested we sit on the nearest bench, which we did.

Jack had been collecting seeds from a wisteria growing over an arbour and gave a packet to Nigel. They saw a blue-tongued lizard in the doorway of the old morgue. Nigel asked if Jack was painting. He was. A picture of people playing croquet, which he brought out to show his son. When Jack started to struggle a little, Nigel said he would go and let him rest. Jack said he'd sit in the sun for a bit.

I said that I'd call him again soon. I said goodbye and walked to my car. As I went to drive away, I tooted the horn. By now, he was sitting on the bench, his painting in hand. He put his other hand in the air and waved.

It was the last time Nigel saw his dad alive.

Jack was a dentist from the North Shore of Sydney. He spent most of his dental career working for the Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern, and was responsible for driving a portable clinic to regional communities in NSW, including Moree, Walgett, Bogabilla and Kempsey, among other places.

He had lived in Braidwood for almost 30 years. Home was a former school room. It's in that little house, surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of his life, Jack's friends and family will gather for his funeral next week, as per his wishes.

Jack worked as a dentist until he was 70 but always painted. He had exactly three exhibitions over his lifetime. The final one in Canberra in 2021, at the age of 91. He was never one for the art world. He'd rather be climbing Mount Gillamatong behind Braidwood, which he used to do weekly.

Jack was self-taught, described as a "naive, magic realist". He never conformed to how things should be done. He painted with nails. He sometimes painted buildings in the wrong location.

Nigel persuaded his father to move to Braidwood, thinking he would enjoy the arts focus of the town. He loved it. And Braidwood loved him.

Jack survived COVID last year at the age of 93. He was given just hours to live by doctors at the Canberra Hospital. But he won that fight, moving into the care facility at Braidwood. To live another day. Paint another painting. Appreciate the little things in life. The important things.

Anna Georgia's 2021 short film of Jack, for instance, showed him marvelling at the clouds of the big skies of Braidwood.

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"To me, they're almost a welcoming cloud, saying, 'Welcome to the bush, mate'," Jack said.

The little things. The big things.

Jack has two surviving sisters: his twin, Mary, who lives in Bega, and Edith, a 99-year-old artist in Sydney. Their sister, Jean, died in Sydney last year aged 96.