A Tribute to my Dad

On this first Father’s Day without my father-in-law, I am reposting my husband’s tribute to this great man, spoken this past November at the funeral.

Hello. I am Tonggu Momma’s Husband. Squeak was my Dad and I am his son.

By the world’s standards, my Dad will most likely not be defined as a great man. Reporters and authors will not write books, magazine articles or front page news stories about him. But HE was great to ME. His moral compass was straight. His faith in God was strong. His compassion for people was carried far by his servants’ heart.

He taught me many things: how to skip stones on the lake; how to build a model airplane; how to swim over deep water; how to take apart a car and actually put it back together again; how to respect the game of golf – not just play it, but respect it; how to fix a sink or a toilet or a faucet; how to adjust my own sprinkler heads; how to treat my spouse; how to be accountable for my actions; what it means to work hard; why God should be important in my life; so many things.

But the most important thing my Dad ever taught me was how to build a successful family. Because you see, my Dad is not my Dad, but he IS my Dad. He taught me that family is larger than genetics, or geography, or bloodlines. I am an adopted son who never knew his birth father. I look on my brother and sister with love, yet I have a bitter taste whenever the world forces me to define them as my STEP-brother and STEP-sister. They are simply my brother and my sister. Why is that? Because my Dad’s heart never wavered when it came to his three kids. My sister is my sister and my brother is my brother, not because of anything we did, but because of what HE did – the way he treated me, just as he treated them.

My Dad’s legacy will live on for generations because he taught all of us that love, not bloodlines, is what builds a successful family. My wife and I adopted our daughter and we are in the process of adopting a second daughter. I’m doing this not because it was a method of last resort for us, but because it’s what I know as normal. Adoption was a first choice for me. And my Dad taught me that that was good. Most of my favorite things to do in life I learned from him: golfing, fixing cars, a healthy day’s pay for a healthy day’s work. But my most favorite thing, the thing in my day that I look forward to the most, is being a Dad to my adopted daughter, just like he was a Dad to me, his adopted son.

So to most of the world my Dad may not be a “great man,” but he was great to ME… and the world could stand to learn a lot from him. Hopefully he was great to many of you here today. I am blessed, my family is blessed and I pray that all of you have been blessed, because of my Dad.

Thank you for coming here today; it means so much to all of us.

When Tonggu Daddy isn’t thinking of his father, he spends his time hugging his daughter, working at The Borg and editing his flighty wife’s blog at Our Little Tongginator.