Kennys words were so beautiful. I would like to post them for all to read. I am not going to talk about my father’s accomplishments. You are here, so you know what he has done. I could stand here and speak for hours about how he opened a free medical clinic, how he has both his M.D. and J.D., or how he was a knight of some prestigious order. These are all great, charitable, and impressive accomplishments of my father’s life. But I want to share with you the things that really separated him from the rest of the crowd Some of you may not know this, but my father was the smartest person in the world. If he didn’t know the answer to a problem or question, nobody would know it. At least that’s what he would tell us, and what I believed for longer than I care to admit. While I did eventually come to realize that he may not be omniscient, I started to recognize all of his other great traits that were exclusively his own. The first thing I recognized was that he is the smartest person in the world. Sounds contradictory. I’m not saying he had all the answers, but he had all of the important ones. First and foremost, he had his priorities straight. Family comes first. And if you knew my father, you knew he took that to heart. That doesn’t mean there weren’t fights, arguments, or disagreements. There was plenty of that, just like any other normal family. What it does mean is that in every aspect in life, family always takes precedence over all else: friends, work, school, yourself, and anything else. Family is the most important thing anybody has in life. Friends, jobs, and material things come and go. Family is there forever, through thick and thin. My father understood and embraced this more than anybody else I knew. Whether it is raising 10 children, caring for his mother until her death at the age of 101, or supporting his wife through some of the toughest times of his own life, he never quit. He never gave up, and he never put himself or anything else before his family. My father was selfless. My father was painfully selfless. My father was miserably selfless. Sure, he told us all about what he could have, should have, and would have wanted. He wanted a boat. He wanted a beach house. He wanted to live in Florida and own a family run restaurant. He wanted a nice car, a yearly vacation, and a coral reef fish tank. Sorry dad, you deserved all of that and more, and it bothers me that you couldn’t have stuck around longer so I could have helped you get some of those things. But that’s the price you pay when you put everybody else in your life above you. He didn’t have to send 8 kids to private school from elementary school through college, but he did. He didn’t have to spend almost every Saturday for the past 16 years of his life volunteering at the clinic. He didn’t have to take in and care for a pregnant teenager. All of the time and resources spent doing these things and more could have all been spent on things he wanted AND DESERVED. But that wasn’t how my dad functioned. He would rather give up what would have made him happy, for the sake of the people he loved and those who needed the help. Dad didn’t ask for much. He was too proud to do that. But I know, and I want everybody here to know that he deserves some recognition. For what he accomplished and who he was as a person. For those he has helped, and the personal sacrifices he has made. He deserves way more than what he got while he was with us here. But don’t stop now and pity him, because if anybody deserves paradise it’s him. Enjoy the beach dad, you deserve it.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:06:29 +0000
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