Sing me a song again, daddy.

"Once when my younger heart was broken, your shoulder was there to cry on.
Sing me those songs I know will linger, long after you have gone."

He never had to use harsh words or to hold a cane in his hand, but his strong silence was very effective in keeping a young, feisty girl in check. I used to think that I feared him, all those nights I stayed past my curfew and stared at my ringing phone with trepidation, but now that I've grown up, I realised that it wasn't fear that had me scurrying home. It was respect.

Something he told me when I was really young has stuck with me all these years. I was no more than 9, and it was just another ordinary night at the dinner table. I can't remember the context of our conversation, but I do remember him turning to me and saying, very matter-of-factly. "Respect is something that has to be earned, not given. For example, I want you to call me papa because you respect me, not because you have to."

We've had our differences – we still do – for I've made some unconventional choices through the years. But in his quiet way he's stood by me through all of it – sending me off at the airport to India (muttering under his breath about the dangers of an uncharted land), sending me off at the airport to Paris (grumbling about the strange Frenchman who stole my heart), and rubbing my shoulders in comfort when I returned home from a trip sobbing over a heartbreak (no, not the Frenchman). Very calmly, he put down the evening papers and held out his arms when I dropped my backpack at the front door.

In recent years, I feel like we've swopped roles, now that his strength is gradually slipping away with age. But when I slipped my hand into his this morning as we walked home from breakfast, I felt it – the rock-steady spirit I know I can always rely on, even when he doesn't look it.

Isn't he amazing?