HE is the one man who has stayed in my life from beginning until today, purely by choice.

HE is the man who has seen his daughter in her ugliest states, with bad breath, on bad hair days, seen the ugly parts of her character that slip through, and still love her.

HE is the man who is always silent, but in the silence is the strength- to believe in a marriage, a family, a woman, far from perfect, to have the resilience to hold on despite how insane things became, and to have the faith to believe that life will turn out fine.

HE is the man who has never revealed a shred of his emotion- his tears and fears are hidden behind a perfectly stoic mask and steel voice, and regardless of the monsters that plague him, wakes up every morning to masquerade ease.

HE is the man who always reminded me of my worth even when it was unbelievable to convince myself of it, who has constantly reiterated that if a man loves me he will love me as well as my Father and better, who has dreams for me that I don't even dare whisper.

HE has never stopped believing in me.

HE is the most important man in my life. I love my Dad.

And for all the times that I was embarrassed to hold my Father's hand in public, to watch the countless movies in a hip place like Cineleisure, all the times he has suddenly shown up while I was with my friends and left all of us in awkward limbo, or other flaws he has (nobody's perfect), he has more than made up for it with the way he has chosen to stick with a broken family and do all he can do to piece it back up.

Very few men would have chosen to stay with a woman when the logical decision would have been to leave.

Very few men would concede that love isn't the crazy rush and easy days, it is also sticking with the mundane, the tedious, the quarrels, the unreasonable and the depressing, the hopeless and the pain and the dirt.

I am PROUD of my Dad, HONOURED to have a Father like him, and INSPIRED with the decisions he has made.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY.