I lost my father suddenly on the 21st October, 1989.  He was admitted to hospital that morning with lower back pain and died later of heart failure.

For at least 10 years prior to that he suffered quite a lot and I think he decided to finally let go.  He always had constant kidney pain due to stones that could not be removed.  My father also had a triple bypass, and since then he was never really well.  He was constantly in and out of hospital, having tests after tests which really drained his life away.

Now let me tell you a bit about my wonderful father.   He was born in Alexandria Egypt on the 5th December, 1931.  He left school at the age of 10 and went straight into the workforce.   My father was born with magic fingers and the only thing that he knew well was to tailor shirts.  Being in touch with so many people my father picked up 7 seven different languages including his own (Armenian). My father was always a happy man regardless of the pain he was suffering.  He was constantly joking (he loved jokes especially the dirty ones) around like nothing was bothering him, but I knew deep inside that he was not well.

I will jump the gun here and go to his time spent in Australia.  He immigrated with my mother in August, 1964 and decided to make Melbourne their home.  I arrived 2 yrs after that and my father was still tailoring shirts.  He found a perfect job with a company that became well known to TV personalities.  Thanks to dad the word got around and this company became bigger.  But all this became to stressful for him as his employer was beginning to stretch his skills and there was no one else who could achieve what my father could do in one day.  I guess it all became to much and eventually led to his death.

The day he passed away, was so hard to deal with, saying goodbye to him was heart wrenching as I never told my father how much I loved him.  It just wasnt the right thing to do in our family.  I had to identify his body due to his death being sudden (that was the worst thing I ever did in my life), I still remember his still body just laying there and having to nod to the coroner through the window.

Dad, you will always be cherished in my life and never forgotten.  Dad I will always love you, and I will let your grandchildren know who their Dede was.  I wish you were there to give me away on my wedding day, and I really wish you had of been there for the births of your grandchildren.  But I know that were looking after them until you were ready to release them to me, and I know that you will always watch over my family and I'm sure that the children will always see you through the corner of their eyes.  

As I say this with tears in my eyes daddy, I wish I had of always said this to you when you were with us, but I will say it to you always in prayer,