Eulogy- By: Valentina Loch
Welcome family and friends. We are together here, on this day before fathers day, to mourn the passing, celebrate the life and pay respects to the memory of George Hampton, husband of Julia, and father to my siblings and I. Other people might have the good sense to keep their comments short, but I’m not going to do that, since my father deserves these words to be spoken.
George was a funny, kindhearted, brave man. Growing up, father always knew how to make people smile.
When someone was having a awful day, he knew exactly what to say to cheer them up. I still remember that day when he would secretly give me candy and with a smirk he had on his face he would tell me to go eat it all up and hide it in my room so mum wouldn’t find out. This would always want me to burst out laughing. I measure the success of a man’s life by all the lives he touched and the amount of people who loved him. He would go out of his way to help the ones in need by going to buy food for the homeless people on the streets while he was feeling ill. Father loved seeing everyone smile. During the time that he was in hospital, everyone knew who he was. He was known as the most kindhearted man in hospital for wanting to help so many sick people upon father being sick himself. He was ready to face and endure danger or pain by helping other sick people in the hospital. This is why everyone knew that my father was a brave man. The evidence to the person he was, was by the number of people who cared so much for him. My father could be a man of a few words which many of you may already know. Action was his main form of communication. If there was anyone in the house who expressed that they wanted a certain food, he would softly depart and go get it, which is the same with movies we wanted to watch. His sense of humour would sometimes come across to seem like he was arrogant but George was greatly humble and would never brag about his strong generosity. He was a loving husband, father, son, brother, uncle, and friend. His dogs were his best friends, as he went by the saying “dogs are a man’s best friend”. He loved and cared for animals so much which made me fall in love with animals too. I remember all those times when he would volunteer at the zoo to help take care of animals. One day he asked me to go to the zoo with him and I remember the excitement and thrill that rushed through my body when he requested me to feed one of the baby cubs. Supporting his family was the strongest drive of his personal and professional life, to make sure we were always safe and taken care of. All these focus values took many years for my brother and I to understand because his messages sometimes endured low expression. His way of saying “always strive to do better” would be “how come that B plus couldn’t be an A plus”.
Being the first-born daughter didn’t always make us see eye to eye. I could be arrogant, stubborn and too ingenious for my own good but this is all understandable because I learned from the best, of course. Over the times of our father daughter relationship, we grew so much closer and I came to appreciate how amazing he was a father to me. It turned out that I inherited his intelligent and creative abilities. He had to be very realistic for his job as a lawyer but he was a deeply creative person at heart. He never discouraged my sister and I from our career choices in the creative path, mine in theater and hers in writing. As a life-long musician my father was, he knew that of the achievement such struggles offered.
But his logical side would step in and tell us that while art is all fine and good, it is important and helpful that we find some practical way to support ourselves at times. That sort of encouragement shows how much my father cared about us.
To his wife, my mother, he was the most supportive husband and loving person she has ever known. His family always came first and meant the world to him. To his daughter, my sister, she had