Why I am Proud to Be My Father’s Daughter

My dad is my hero. Throughout my childhood my dad was always the larger than life character in our community. He is what you call a good bloke. This means he is involved and caring. He fought the Ash Wednesday fires, spending his day having to put down livestock and helplessly watching people’s homes burn down with courage and stoicism and came home to quietly cry in my mother’s arms. It was this expression of emotion that stayed with me and showed me that a man is soft as well as tough.

He was in the city when the fires started and all the roads to our hills home were blocked and in flames but he was able to get hold of a motorcycle to get past the road blocks and dodge the dangers to reach his family and get us to safety.

That sort of thing tends to stay in your memory as an heroic act.

But it is the everyday goodness that makes him more of a hero to me.

He showed me that I can be a hero too. Small acts of kindness are heroic, buying a coffee for a homeless person, carrying someone’s groceries to their car, fostering a child, rescuing a dog from a shelter, becoming a Scout Leader, coaching sport.

He showed me that small acts of kindness mean a lot to people and that volunteering in your community builds friendships and networks and that you get as much out of it as you put in.

That kindness is its own reward. He taught me that you should always treat other people the way you want to be treated yourself.

He never told me that I should do these things, I just saw him do it all the time and only realised when I was older that not everyone does this, he showed me they should, that it makes a difference.

My Dad, and Mum have raised 8 children of their own and fostered over 100 children for emergency foster care because they are doing what they would want done for us.

I have tried hard to be that same example to my children and as a family we are all involved in our community, it makes us feel like we can be heroes ourselves.

It makes me feel proud and hold my head up high when someone says “you are your father’s daughter!”