Life is not a rehearsal. It’s a phrase I've carried with me since I was a teenager when I first remember my father using it. It was a time when the number of meaningful conversations we shared seemed to take a steeply upward curve. They would often take place in the car having pulled up back at boarding school on a Sunday night.

Evidently my father thought his youngest daughter was in need of wisdom at that time. Perhaps delivering it in an enclosed environment where neither of us could escape the conversation but the car seats forced us to look forward and not make eye contact was the perfect scenario for us both.

I’m not sure what shaped my father’s world view and one of the great sadnesses of my life is that I'll never have the opportunity to ask him. My father passed away suddenly when I was 23 and only just beginning to lose the enormous sense of ego that takes you into early adulthood.

My mother had died just as suddenly a little over a year before and it had prodded me into formulating an idea of mining my father’s memories – he was born in Cairo, spent years in Pakistan as a child and had a hugely varied career in the army – for an Arabian Nights-inspired series of tales.

There just wasn’t enough time. Despite the opportunity lost, I was still well aware of my father’s talent for storytelling. He had a way of holding court at a table, delivering anecdotes unprompted with enough wild flavour to make you wonder to what extent the tale had been embellished. But, to quote a saying of my grandmother’s, ‘why spoil a good story for the truth’.

Perhaps it’s to her that I owe my father’s wonderful character and spirit. Family legend has it she had friends on both sides of the Spanish Civil War during which she spent time with her mother and sister in Granada. She died when I was 16 but I always thought of her as doughty even on two walking sticks wandering around her sizeable vegetable garden.

Despite still being relatively young when my father died, I'd endured enough claustrophobic car counselling (and revelled in many late-night discussions over illicit cigarettes) to have a basic adult appreciation of his personality. I knew the phrase 'life is not a rehearsal' was important to him and I insisted it was used in his eulogy.

I'm hugely grateful to his old friend (and best man at his wedding) Peter Plunkett for capturing the essence of my father so perfectly at his funeral. Speaking boldly and truthfully, Peter addressed nearly his entire eulogy directly to my father, not his mourners. It was initially a shock, but the effect was magnificent.

I always knew I had an uncle I never met, my father’s older brother Peter, who died in a car accident when he was 21. There was always a picture of Peter on our mantlepiece at home and his wistful look made me think he must have been a thoughtful man. Perhaps this traumatic event was the root of my father’s favourite saying.

Fifteen years have now passed since my father died. My three siblings and I are all parents ourselves with a tribe of 10 children between us that would have both delighted my parents and bankrupted them each Christmas. Something my father would have made sure we knew about.

Surprisingly, the talent for meaningful sayings seems to have passed to my brother. On the surface I would say he is the least like my father of all my siblings however he has perhaps invested the most inward reflection into our parents’ untimely passing over the years and may have gained greater clarity and perspective on life than me as a result.

Recently, my brother has delivered some golden nuggets of advice to me. These include ‘embrace the deviation’, ‘make micro choices’ and ‘life is not full of either/ors, it’s full of ands’. His endlessly supportive wife has also taken up the baton, advocating choices that are ‘additive’ and ‘oxygen-giving’. These are people you want to spend time with.

I should also give credit to my second-eldest sister. While discussing my four-year-old son’s propensity for rugby tackling his adult family members at speed (and usually without warning) we came up with the phrase ‘crouch and brace’. I think there is some wider wisdom in that too.

On reflection I think my entire family is rather philosophical. My eldest sister doesn’t necessarily express this in words but in timely interventions and kind actions. My aunt, my father’s youngest sister (and with eternal gratitude also my godmother), is a font of knowledge, sense and along with her older sister, known in the family as ‘an arbiter of good taste’.

Life is not a rehearsal. My children are growing up quickly. My friends are making interesting and diverse choices for themselves and their families. Life is not settling but moving, a long-distance train journey with destination unknown and the opportunity to change route along the way.