A Daughter’s Dad

A Daughter’s Dad

Dear Shanta,

Dad put you first. He admired and appreciated you. He could never find the right words to tell you how proud he was of you, to speak of his appreciation or show his emotions. He could only speak through deeds.

Dad loved you.

A Daughter, Shanta.

You inherited his stubbornness of spirit, his independence, his conviction in his ability to carve his destiny. You inherited his sense of fairness. You inherited his inventive, artistic and creative quality. And you inherited his wild humour and ability to laugh at himself.

To all that you added the joy of life.

You took life as it came with confidence. You handled your fair share of challenges with generosity, adapted to circumstances high and low, made things right for your family and yourself, and never forgot to give to others.  You looked after a sick husband and two young daughters, studied for a degree, and pursued a career providing income. No small feat. And throughout you gave yourself time to chill – watching nature, painting, listening to music, dancing, and socializing.

You sparkle with talent and exotic glamour.
You fill me with awe and wisdom.
I love you Shanta.

Dad could not have asked for a more special daughter.

Thank you for this touching, grateful and funny eulogy for him.

“Port Talbot South Wales
2:30pm 06/01/17

Having only been allocated three minutes today I hope that you will bear with me if I over run slightly. As Terry’s only child I have found it no easy task to compress our fifty-two-year relationship into a few short sentences.

What can I say about my dad?

Well, he certainly had his moments and at times he could be a difficult man to love as some of you here well know. He could be obstinate, single minded, stubborn and opinionated.

He could also be unbelievably generous and considerate. He cared for and financially provided for my maternal grandparents as if they were his own and I know that my mother’s family will always remember him fondly for this.

He also had a cheeky and mischievous streak as his sister Jean will attest to; only last month despite his ill health he was bumping his mobility scooter into her chair for his own amusement.

There were times when I was growing up that my mother had to run interference as my dad and I squabbled like siblings over the remote control or who ate who’s chocolate.

As a child I was in awe of his ingenuity and seemingly endless skills to fix or build anything be it a car made from shell casings or rewriting an entire house. He was one of those rare individuals who could achieve anything he set his mind to, often with only sheer will power and determination.

I am grateful to both him and my mother for providing me with a near perfect childhood, growing up as I did on not one but two tropical islands. I will treasure those memories, from riding on the back of his Norton motorbike to and from school in Penang to having his sisters come and visit us in Hong Kong and the hilarious mayhem that ensued.

On a more serious note though, despite his own lack of formal education he ensured that I received the best one that money could buy; providing me with a solid educational foundation with which to face the future.

For this I am truly grateful, as I am for all the adventures and journeys that we had traveling the world, from Expo70 in Japan to pony trekking in Nepal. This small-town Welsh boy helped open my eyes to the wonders of the world and enthralled me with stories of his time in the air force overseas and anecdotes of working in Vietnam during the war.

Of all his achievements and traits, I admire my father the most for his business acumen. He had a natural instinct and talent for it and an uncanny ability to find a great deal or bargain. I will certainly miss his invaluable financial advice as well as the numerous long calls that we exchanged putting the world to rights.

I would like to take a moment to thank Flor for looking after him so well in later life, despite the distance between us it gave me comfort to know that he had someone there to care for him.

My father had a great love of Asia and the many happy decades that he spent there but he always returned to his Welsh roots of which he was so proud. And so it is only fitting that I stand here today in the land of my Fathers and pay tribute to a man who passed on to myself and my two daughters not only his Welsh heritage but also the strength, tenacity and determination that goes with it.

Thanks, dad.”