Obituaries

In loving memory of Andrew Sinclair who sadly passed away peacefully on Thursday 12 September 2019

Beloved Father of Milos, Milena , Aleksandra, Kasandra & Andjie (dec)

Beloved son of Elaine & Rex (dec)

Beloved brother, brother-in-law and uncle to Sue, Clive, Paul, Chris & Katelyn

To the world you were but one. To us you were the world.

Dads Eulogy-

1964 what a year My fair lady won best movie Polo prince won the Melbourne cup Cassius clay was the heavyweight boxing champion

But on Sunday March 1st 1964 our nan Elaine did something so amazing. She gave birth to an absolute legend she named Andrew Sinclair.

It’s with a broken heart that I stand here before you all today to honor someone we all loved so much.

Our son, brother, uncle, soulmate, relative, best friend and lastly our dad.

If I filled a room full of 100 people who knew dad or had met him and asked them each to say something bad about him that room would be filled with silence for eternity.

Everyone he met loved him whether it was a quick chat at one of Aleks’s soccer matches, a bbq competition, a party or just accidentally bumping into him.

He was just a lovable human being.

He put others before himself which made him the most selfless person we could have ever known.

My brother Milos summed this up perfectly the other night by saying dad was everyone’s guardian angel. It was like he was put on earth to look over us all and make sure we were all ok first.

With dad It didn’t matter who you were or what you had done or where you had come from he was never one to judge. Everyone was his equal.

He was loyal, compassionate, humble, friendly and had the biggest heart full of so much love to give.

As his daughter I am thankful and proud that these traits were passed down and are reflected today in my brother, sisters and myself.

He was a gentle giant who always made sure that he had a crude dad joke on hand that made us shake our heads in disbelief that it came out of his mouth but cry tears of laughter at how funny it was.

He had a knack for everything and knew everything to. It didn’t matter what the question or subject was he had a solution and if he didn’t he would call you back in 10 minutes with one.

Dad had a brilliant mind that worked mechanically. There was never an easy fix for him when something was broken. There always had to be something more mechanical to it a reason why it wasn’t working even if the solution was staring him right in face.

Which brings me to a story I would like to share about dad and the dishwasher at home.

One night in 2017 I loaded the dishwasher Put a powerball tablet in Went to close the dishwasher door and it wouldn’t shut

Yelled out for dad who came to my aid and together we had this dishwasher in pieces

Dad and I were sprawled over the kitchen floor The Power and water was disconnected The Switches were all exposed Dad pulled the dishwasher Door off There were Tools everywhere

Dad's conclusion was that it was my fault somehow I had managed to bend the hinges on the dishwasher door. My argument back was this dishwasher was old and it was just stuffed

2 hours later we were still at it, we finally put it all back together and the door still wouldn’t close and we both admitted defeat that it was time for a new dishwasher.

As I’m packing up the tools, dads still determined to fix it and won’t let it go and dad pauses looks at me scrunching his face and goes "milena humour me for a sec take the top rack out"

Confused I did what he asked and I took out the top rack

And heyyy presto the dishwasher door closed like normal

The one thing I learnt from this experience while Dad was shaking his head and laughing at me was before you get dad to spend 2 hours pulling the whole dishwasher apart make sure that there’s no knives Jammed in the top rack!

This is just an example of the extent dad would go to get things fixed for us even if they were so simple in the end. Its memories like this I’m sure most of us have with him.

He had 3 loves in his life His Ute, his dogs and his kids

These were his prized possessions and he was so proud of them and even though he always told us he made sure he told everyone he could too.

He equipped us with the tools and knowledge to be able to handle every situation that life threw at us except this one but gave us the most amazing gift dad could. He believed in us!

He was always there to lend a hand and wipe our tears away.

And even though he lacked style would tell us if we looked okay

He picked his phone up early morning to keep us awake while we were driving

And made sure with every decision we made that we were always striving

He lent an ear and gave us advice although he was no qualified shrink

But somehow he always managed to make us go away and think.

Through tougher times he held our hands and drove our fears away By his 4 kids side he fought and battled and said that’s where he'd stay. And he did

Our dad can’t receive a medal There’s no medal in the world That would ever be valuable enough to give to him to thank him for everything that he has done for us.

But we thank you for always telling us that you loved us at the end of every call and meaning it.

And for always giving us a hug when we walked through the front door and an even bigger one when you knew we had a bad day.

For always making sure we didn’t leave without a goodbye kiss or go to bed without one either.

For always knowing when something was up and giving us space until we were ready to talk,

For always reassuring us through hard times that everything would work out when we had lost hope And always letting us know that in this cruel world we were important and we were needed and we were loved by him. We thank you

But most of all

Thank you for being our dad, our hero, our best friend and loving us the way you did. No one can ever replace that. We are the Sinclair children because of him and we are so damn proud of it too. He spent so much time on earth with us 4 that it’s andjies turn to now spend her time with dad too

So as I end my speech today I want you all to know that dad would not want us to leave here with feelings of guilt, regret , thinking about the what if’s or thinking about the things we didn’t do or say.

In stead he would want us to think about him and the legacy he leaves behind in his children and behind in us all.

So please cherish the memories you have of him hold them close to your heart and know that regardless of where you are in life he will alway be right beside you.

Xxx