Television presenter Chris Bath has shared a heartbreaking tribute to her father Donald, who has died after suffering a series of devastating strokes.
The Channel 10 newsreader posted the sad family update on Instagram on Wednesday, announcing her father died peacefully on Monday surrounded by loved ones.
“My Dad didn’t want a funeral, didn’t want the ‘hoo ha’, he said,” she wrote alongside a number of pictures of her father.
“At the risk of having him haunt me forever, which I wouldn’t mind because I’d really like to have him around, I’m posting this because celebrating the dead is for the living, & there are so many people who will read this who also loved him.
“Dad was a people person. He loved people and people loved him.
“He was one of those Dads that all your friends loved, one of those magic people with a gift for effortlessly making other people feel good.”
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She described him as “quietly, effortlessly funny, a larrikin energy tractor beam that drew in anyone in his orbit.”
“He would’ve killed it in show business but he was a draftsman by trade who ended up a precast concrete guru, the son of a welder & a machinist (who had to give up work once she married),” she continued.
“The thing is, when Dad had two girls of his own, and lived in a house with three women (interesting during teenage years, he used to say, as we all “cycled” together), he was never sexist.
“We grew up thinking we could do anything because he told us so.”
The comments section was filled with condolences for the Bath family.
“What beautiful words for a beautiful man, Bathie,” Channel Seven journalist Jodie Speers wrote.
“Reminds me (almost uncannily) of my own darling Dad.
“How lucky to have had a father like this.
“So sorry for your loss.”
“Sending big love,” entertainer Rhonda Burchmore said.
“Oh Chris. What a stunning tribute. Tears. Arms around you. What a dad,” musician Tania Doko posted.
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