The three of them - priceless.

"The writer had him wrong. His greatest achievement wasn't making it big at the age of 61 or getting that world title."

Never say die.

Of course I had to hear about it from my cousin and not my family who never bothered to tell me about my dad's latest fame.

That was the title of the article featured in the LIFE! section of The Straits Times a few weeks ago. It was a special edition about people who've hit the big 5-0 and are in the prime time of their lives. Right. Of course my dad is 61 but he still warranted mention.

I can still remember when I was ten years old and they wanted to feature my dad in some TV talkshow. We had to clean up our house as the cameraman was coming and put nice tablecloths on our dinner table. Then we had to sit around the table like we were eating a proper meal, and my mom would so domestically serve my dad food. And then later in the evening, we as a family would go jogging together. My hair back then was short like a tom-boy (my dad didn't allow us to have long hair, he said it would make us vain) and I was wearing a dorky pair of shorts that I would rather forget about. Then there would be those radio talk shows on Warna that would make me cringe when my dad spoke broken Malay ( I guess it runs in the family).

But I guess this particular article has to top it. I've always been proud of my dad. To give you the gist, my dad till several years ago was doing well in the stock market business. And then all hell broke loose when the 1997 financial crisis hit and as he puts it, "others got their fingers burnt but I got my hands and legs burnt."

Needless to say the years after that were bad times and it had been known that some in his position have committed suicide, others gone to jail for not being able to pay, but my dad; he never gave up. My family had to live in a rented house because we couldn't afford to own one. He was unemployed for months, becoming a house dad while my mom worked. Oh how the mighty had fallen.

He had to rebuild everything from scratch.He went into the property business and had to go for courses and exams to get his liscence. He was 55, but he worked like he was 30. I can still remember the days when he first started as a junior agent. My siblings and I had to go from HDB flat to flat, distributing flyers. Being initially inexperienced, my father got cheated by clients and other agents.

Today, my dad is the first Singaporean to be named the top volume producer for Asia and Europe and he received his award in Las Vegas. Alhamdulillah Praise to Allah s.w.t. In a major corporate where he was the first of his race and kind to dare to dream, he continued to clinch the top awards year after year. They never saw him coming.

But my dad never forgot where he came from. He motivated other young and keen unemployed people to join. He gave free classes and trained them, and showed them that it didn't matter that others underestimated them, what mattered was that you never gave up and that you didn't forget God. Alhamdullillah, many of these previously unemployed people now have good jobs to support their families.

He wrote letters and protested against agents who had been cheating clients in particular, those who were uneducated and were easily duped. Those of my community. He made sure their follies were discovered and trained his other agents to guard against such people and protect the client at all costs. No one would have thought he would make it to the top, but when he did, he brought his whole team along with him and they too were part of the 'Pak Lah' famous team. A bunch of underestimated minorities who pulled the carpet when no one was looking.

But never forget the woman or should I say women, who supported my dad. My mother, who to this day, I think is the only person who truly understands him and my mak (no my dad doesn't have two wives, it's a long story), who made sure that we had food and a functional house for my dad to return to after a long day. He would leave home as early as 7 am and return at 2 am everyday. Yes, he's 62.

I could write a book about his life. How he helped pay for his sister's university fees and then had to work years to pay for his own fees before he could enter university. His countless medals as a long distance athelete and his not so savoury days of having a string of girls. According to my mom, everybody wanted him (haha!). How he had to take care of his siblings when his older brother passed away, and his mother was ailing. His dad had passed away when he was six.

As my father said in the article, "the greatest lesson I've learnt in life is never say die. If you fall, get up, crawl, walk, whatever to start over again."

Of course I had my nine word fame when he mentioned me in the article. I still have yet to berate him about that. What would people think? Geez aba.

I guess I must be feeling a bit homesick to devote a whole post to my father. To me, my dad is my hero. I don't think I could ever live up to his name but I know, if there's one thing about being his daughter, I will always fight. Die fighting.

The writer had him wrong. His greatest achievement wasn't making it big at the age of 61 or getting that world title.

It was that he picked up the little pieces when most would or could not have. It was that he tried to make our lives as comfortable as ever even when times were dire.

He would make toast for us before we went to school when he could not work. He would buy every single type of jam, butter, kaya, buns and place them neatly in a tray on the dinner table in typical Aba fashion. And when he found out I never ate breakfast before going to school, he would buy the coffee shop type of bread, the kind that I ate, from the bakery so that I would eat. It was that he bought bags of keropok for me so that I had something to eat while I studied for my A-Levels. It was that even when he knew he might not be able to afford it, he never wanted to disappoint his children.

Yes, he would say, we have money to send you overseas. Though I knew it was hope and faith that allowed him to say that.

And even after all of this, at the age of 61, he still has dreams of completing Islamic studies in Al-Azhar with my mother. MasyaAllah. He doesn't stop when most would have.

My dad, one in a million. My mother, one in a million. My mak, one in a million. The three of them - priceless.