My dads memorial service is this afternoon. This is the eulogy that I wrote for him.

For the first time in my life, I'll celebrate Father's Day this year without my dad - the man who had the most influence on the woman I became. When I succeeded my dad stood back and took no credit, and when I failed he was by my side. What more could I ask?

It has been said that the loss of a parent is one of life's most traumatic events. I now know the devastating truth of that statement. I've been told that, in time, the hurt will fade, only to be replaced by positive memories that soothe the soul. Already, I can feel that happening.

Maybe it's because my father and I had a simple and loving relationship. He was a remarkably good man, he was a man of dedication and integrity, a man who understood a hard day's work.

His core accomplishment was family. My father poured vast amounts of love and energy into me during my most formative years. That is why I measure his life in the warehouse of photographs and memories he created for me. It is why I measure it in the size of his hands. Because what I remember most about my father are those sandpaper-rough hands, made rugged from iron work. From my earliest days, he took my hand in his and we discovered the world together.

With his hand in mine, we walked through the woods at the camp. We went to my grandmother's house on Saturday afternoons for endless windmill cookies and circus peanuts. We cooked French toast and fried ring bologna. We went for long hikes on Sunday afternoons, through the nearby woods. We went to swimming lessons and the movies. We hunted for night crawlers. We fished together, in rowboats, off riverbanks and on the ice. We built snow forts and picked blueberries. We would take long drives out to the camp, and he would always let us steer the car. And every summer we swam and swam and swam in Sunson’s lake.

And I remember these things as if we had done them all last weekend -- because we did them again and again and again, his outstretched hand leading me everywhere. I remember my times with my father as vividly as a favorite song, where you know every word, every note. You know it until it becomes part of you, until it becomes you.

He did that for me, and because he did, we will always travel together.

The loss of my father has been painful, yet also strangely reaffirming because it has made me ever more aware of the rewards of our wonderful partnership. Perhaps the most consoling thought for my siblings and I is this: "Think of the legacy he left us -- a curiosity about life, a hunger for knowledge, a passion for the outdoors, an example of a life whose riches owe little to money, a sense that anything is possible if you work hard, a model of what a father should be. Those are all great gifts."

All of us here are suffering from the loss of my father, but the world will also now suffer from the loss of a great man who had much more to do on this earth. But my father taught me to have a sense of humor about everything, no matter how sad – not to take life to seriously because none of us are going to make it out alive, and little of what we do is going to matter in a few years.

If I could see my dad one more time, I would tell him that I love him, that I am so proud of the life he led, and I will keep him in my heart always. And most importantly, I would tell him how blessed and thankful I am, and will always be, to be his daughter.