An audio recording of an early eulogy I gave for my dad:

I remember sitting in the attic with my family when I was 11. We were devastated after my dad called from the hospital to tell us my grandma just passed away. I had never felt so sad.

When my dad came home a few minutes later, I pressed my head against his leg, crying. All the family was together, and my dad began to talk. He started telling stories about growing up with his mom and the family. Within minutes, he had us all laughing.

My dad had an extraordinary gift to get people to open up and laugh during moments of incredible pain. He loved doing big things and telling stories, but what he loved most was helping people.

He would want us to laugh and remember the good times we’ve had together. I couldn’t have asked for a better role model, and please, don’t be afraid to laugh.

I will start and end with the last thing my dad and I did together.

It was 11pm Sunday night. I was studying for a final exam early the next morning when my dad knocked on the door. He just put the wheels back on a Honda Civic we had been working on for weeks. He said nothing, just smiled and jingled the keys. I jumped in the driver’s seat and we drove out to Lucas Valley. In a hairpin about midway up the hill, the front wheels began to slide. I was used to sliding my CRX, but that didn’t have ABS.

This new car pulled hard to the right and we missed the guard rail. My foot was hard on the brake, but all four wheels slid off the road. We eventually stopped, but I was terrified the car would give way and we’d be found the next morning at the bottom of that hill.

I was shaking, but my dad was calm. He told me to pull the e-brake, put the car in first, and let off the brake pedal. As I did, the car lurched forward and I was certain things would get a lot worse. But the car found another happy spot, and we stopped again.

I slowly opened the door and stepped out. The passenger door couldn’t open, so my dad climbed over the driver’s seat and made it out as well. Together, we crawled through mud and back onto the road.

It was cold, dark, raining, and there was no cell reception. It was just me and my dad with all the time in the world. I looked down the hill, seeing nothing but the reflective license plate on the back of the car. I visualized it tumbling down, swallowed by the dark abyss. About 15 minutes later, a car passed by and the driver gave us a lift to a nearby gas station. I asked my dad if I should call my mom, to which we both needed to pause and fully consider the consequences.

My dad called 911 and the CHP came. As the car was being pulled up, I anticipated the damage. I was convinced an axle snapped and the steering column was ruined. But when I looked at the front of the car, there was no damage. My dad joked: “You should thank your mother for praying so much for you,” and we laughed. I gave my dad the keys and he drove me home. Even though I didn’t do so hot on the final a few hours later, I counted my blessings.

The next Friday, we ate dinner at Mi Pueblo. I spent most of the time cursing the car in an ego defense mechanism called projection. The car had over 200,000 miles and no service history, so we needed to replace the timing belt. We had the parts, and we were looking forward to working on it that weekend.

When I woke up Sunday morning, I found the light next to my dad’s bed still on. This wasn’t uncommon as he frequently pulled all-nighters for his patients. Over the years, my family and I became used to not being with him as much as we’d like. It was tough because reading bedtime stories with him was my favorite part of everyday when I was young. We read Mark Twain, Michael Lewis, stories on the California Gold Rush, and books about the battle between Ford and Ferrari at Le Mans. It took me years before I understood his immense responsibility as a physician, accepting why he made the choices he did: so often choosing his patients over his own family.

Later that Sunday morning, two police officers knocked on our door and asked to speak with my mom. One of them was my dad’s patient. I figured he had been arrested for doing something stupid and needed bail, but they said in no uncertain terms they found my dad’s body.

My heart stopped. Everything stopped.

I felt numb, but managed to listen as the officers told us my dad was going exceptionally fast and lost control on his bike. The front wheel broke off and he hit his head with enormous force, breaking his helmet. He got up immediately after, and walked a few feet before collapsing.

It was cold and my dad died alone. There is no greater irony. He spent his life helping countless people. He did a lot of good for his community, he loved his patients, he cared for his friends and family, and he was a great dad.

In my antisocial teen years, one night at dinner he gave me some unsolicited advice on how to talk to people. He said: “Instead of asking someone what’s wrong, ask what they enjoy doing.” Only now do I understand what he meant.

As a physician, my dad’s goal was never to slap a bandaid on a symptom to make a quick buck from an insurance company. He genuinely wanted his patients to live the life they wanted. At the surface, he came off to some as egotistical and self-centered. But, he is the most selfless man I know. He wanted all of us to enjoy and cherish life.

These past few weeks have been eye-opening for me. I knew my dad helped a lot of people, but I never fully appreciated the scope of it all. So many individuals have told me how much my dad meant to them, how much he cared for them, and how much he did for them, that I am inspired. Tears come to my eyes as I see that even in death, my dad continues to inspire me. He has left big shoes to fill, and I will do my best to make him proud.

In the 1970s, my dad rode his bike up to Canada. He slept on the roads and used folded dollar bills to patch his tires. He raced for Velo Sport and told me stories about hill climbs up Grizzly Peak and Pinehurst. One day we were riding in Berkeley and someone was giving away a big metal bench press. My dad stopped, lifted it over his shoulder, and carried it all the way back home while riding his bike.

On descents, he was fearless. He overtook cars and bragged about his 56-tooth chainring paired to an 11-tooth cassette. He said it was necessary for drafting semis on the freeway at 75 miles an hour. While going incredibly fast, my dad would get into an aero position and use his left hand as a spoiler, harkening back to his days as a speed skater. I couldn’t keep up with him, but I never stopped smiling.

In his younger years, my dad did a type of track cycling called madison racing in which teams will alternate sprinting in a velodrome. During the switch, the rider who just finished sprinting will grab their teammate’s hand and throw them forward. When my dad was teaching my brother and me to ride bikes, he would ride his bike alongside and give us a big push.

I remember my first time climbing Big Rock with him. Midway up, I was exhausted, but he placed his hand on my back and pushed. My dad did this for anyone, even in a race. Hill climbs were not his forte, but if he saw someone struggling, he was always there to give them a push.

Growing up, my dad taught my brother and me some interesting lessons. One day in front of a grocery store, he showed us how to scavenge through trash cans to build the optimal windbreaker. Another time, at a petstore, he had us eat dog food and said it was the best value for protein when you’re on a budget. He even successfully demonstrated how to pee while riding a bike. It’s not pretty, but you do what you need to do to stay in a race.

I hit a car on my bike when I was 19. I crashed through the windshield and had a major concussion. I can’t remember that day, and when I woke up, I couldn’t tell you anything about what I studied in school. It was a wake up call that cycling is a dangerous sport with incredible risks.

But if you never take risks, you will get nothing from life. Every time I get on my bike, I know there’s a chance I’m not coming back. My dad and I shared a love for cycling, and you take risks for the things you love.

My dad had his own unique way of learning. His theory, in his own words, was: “bullshit from two independent sources establishes fact.” He spent irrational periods of time working on his Alfa Romeo. He’d ignore conventional wisdom and make his own way. It took him two weeks to align the transmission bell housing with the engine block on his car, but he never wavered in his quest to make his own path.

I love driving with my dad, but his methods were unorthodox. When I was learning to drive at 15, he had me take the 1991 Mercedes Benz 560 SEL through the bustling and cramped streets of San Francisco. The defroster and reverse gear didn’t work, and the car was the size of an aircraft carrier. I couldn’t see anything that rainy night, but he made me keep going. It was trial by fire, and somehow I didn’t crash.

My dad managed to park that 4100-lb car without a reverse gear through an impressive task in which he opened the driver’s door and scooted the car back using his left foot. He did this daily for years, refining the process into an art. I smile everytime I think of him arriving at a fancy place, wearing a nice suit and driving such a dignified car, only at the last minute showing the world he drove a glorified flintmobile.

My dad’s other car was a 1966 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super. In 2012, it was hit by a Volvo, smashing the front end. My dad wanted to fix it himself, so we signed up for an auto body class at College of Marin taught by Tom Behr. We spent the next months straightening the frame, matching paint, and learning a lot.

One night after a particularly long class, my dad taught me how to drive stick in the Alfa. He had installed a racing clutch, so the pedal was exhaustingly stiff and I kept stalling, but he wouldn’t let me stop until I got it right. At my last dinner with him on Friday, he reminded me: “In that one night, you learned how to throw bondo, use an oxyacetylene torch, weld, heat shrink metal, and drive stick.”

In college, I’d meet my dad at his office every Friday night after school. One night, I asked him for a physical. He went through the motions of shining the light in my eyes to check for retinopathy, told me to breathe while he held his stethoscope on my back, checked my knee-jerk reflex, had me squeeze the JAMAR, told me to push against his hands, looked into my ear canals, and felt my abdomen. His hands were always freezing cold and even though I was 22, I was ticklish and couldn’t stop laughing.

When the time came to check blood pressure, he stopped and gave me his stethoscope. He said he would teach me how to do it. He had me locate his brachial artery, then showed me how to get the appropriate cuff and inflate it while listening to the blood flow. He told me to keep inflating until I couldn’t hear any more whooshing in the stethoscope. I then slowly opened the relief valve and watched the pressure gauge until I started to hear his heartbeat. He told me that number was the systolic pressure, the maximum force exerted against the walls of the arteries when the heart contracted.

Next, he told me to let more pressure out while listening to the heartbeats fade away. When I heard the last beat, the gauge marked the diastolic pressure, the pressure of blood between heart beats. My dad had me repeat the process several times until I recorded consistent results. We kept going until I got it right, just like how he taught me to drive stick.

In that moment, I realized that learning things the hard way makes you an excellent teacher. And in that regard, my dad was a savant. Working on cars together, he would often remind me: “You don’t know how to do something until you know every way not to do it.”

When I was 12, our home computer died. My dad and I just watched the movie Patton and his favorite quote was: “Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” My dad figured I was old enough to learn how to build computers, so he told me to do it.

I was a disillusioned 6th grader who wouldn’t read a book to save my life. I knew nothing about computers, nor did my dad, but he gave me a chance. I loved working on computers and soon my dad was having me work on everything from servers to printers at his office.

In hindsight, one of my dad’s most admirable qualities was giving people a chance. He knew how hard it was to get back into the job market after being unemployed for months or years, so he would often hire his own patients to work at his office to get them back on their feet.

He took risks, and they didn’t always pay off. It was not a “viable business model,” but for my dad, it was never about the money. He never lost faith, and would always go out of his way to help someone.

I was arguably one of my dad’s worst patients when I was young. My biggest fear in the whole world was needles. I hated shots more than anything, and one day, I was in my dad’s office for an undisclosed reason. My mom told me if I got my shot, she’d buy me a burger. I loved burgers, and that was usually enough to buy me off, but needles terrified me so much that I said there was no way I was going through with it.

I was adamantly opposed and crossed my arms when I saw my dad walk into the waiting room. I could see in his eyes I was getting the shot, but I was a determined 7 year old. He picked me up, kicking and screaming, and as he carried me out, I clung to the door harder than if my life depended on it. My dad was much stronger. It’s difficult to describe how scared I was, but suffice it to say, I ended up punching him before he got that needle in my arm.

A few months ago, I wanted to get a flu shot so I’d be less likely to get sick during midterm season at Berkeley. It was Friday night and my dad was tired after a long week, but I insisted he come to the 24-hour CVS Pharmacy and get his flu shot with me. He reminded me how hard I punched him when he gave me that shot years before, and laughed about how much the tables have turned.

When our dog, Sarge, started having trouble walking in his later years, my dad seized the opportunity to teach me how to administer injections. He broke out his medication box and showed me how to draw up a prescribed dosage of an anti inflammatory drug. He had me use different gauge needles to feel the resistances. Despite my inexperience, Sarge was a surprisingly forgiving patient after we gave him some cheese.

In elementary school, every Friday night my dad and I drove to the Berkeley City Club to swim with my aunt and uncle. During one of those drives, I asked my dad how the heart knew when to pump. He told me there were electrical impulses the brain sent to the heart, like the distributor sending a spark to the cylinders in the very car we were driving.

I can’t tell you how much I loved being with my dad; he gave me a beautiful perspective on life that I’ll never forget.

He encouraged my brother and me to be ambitious, though he was heavy-handed in the direction of UC Berkeley and medicine. As a physician, he took great pride in bragging: “I have the best job in the world.” He loved to talk, and he was always working on some big project with gusto. He is the most ambitious person I know, and the most stubborn. He took the path less travelled time and again, steamrolling his way through to the bitter end. I disagreed with him frequently and we had our differences, but no one can deny he is a good and honest man.

My dad worked with first responders, police and fire departments, and politicians to advocate for workers comp patients who were being abused by insurance companies. He was attacked when an insurance company refused to pay him on the false claim he lost his medical license, but my dad kept fighting.

At dinner, he would tell me stories about physicians who were hired by insurance companies to find new ways to deny patients the care they needed, when they needed it. It wasn’t just about paying for treatments, it was about the excessively long process of getting authorizations. Every day an insurance company stalled, the physiological damage caused to a patient, and harm to our community, increased. My dad fought the good fight, often not coming home until 5 or 6am after pulling all-nighters to help his patients not only get back to work, but live the life they wanted.

Outside of work, when my soccer team’s coach Julius was fired after false accusations, my dad founded the Marin Youth Soccer Association. Julius was from Nigeria and played on the world cup team. He is the most passionate coach I’ve ever had, and my dad wanted him to continue doing what he loved, so he hired him and organized a team.

My dad rented a bus and drove us out to Stinson Beach where we played soccer on the sand. I’ve never had so much fun. My dad bought us uniforms, coordinated with local teams, organized games, rented vans, setup practices, and most importantly, taught us how effectively negotiate with referees during emotional moments. Just like with his patients, he didn’t care if you couldn’t afford it. He wanted everyone to enjoy life, and those were some of his happiest days.

When my dad was at home, you’d find him working in the garage. Over the years, that garage gave birth to countless creations. One of the things I loved most about my dad was that there was never a project we couldn’t do.

In cub scouts, I wanted something cool and different for the pinewood derby. At the time, I loved light up shoes and Hummers. My dad took me to Radio Shack where we picked up some LEDs. In the garage, he got out his soldering kit he had been using since he was 14, and taught me how to solder.

He showed me how to twist the wires into hooks to give the connections “mechanical strength.” He taught me how to use his drill and we made holes for the headlights and taillights. A 9V battery was the perfect size, and we painted it black to look like the gas tank.

We hollowed out the car and affixed our custom wiring harness with some hot glue we stole from my mom. While our car didn’t win, I didn’t care. It was the first time I realized that I didn’t need to win to be happy; building the coolest car with my dad made me happy.

I was very competitive when I was young, so my dad entered me in the Nevada City Classic and Burlingame Youth Criterion. The night before one of the races, my dad brought me into the garage where he opened a bottle of his cherished Campagnolo lubricant. He loved that lubricant more than life itself and dispensed the tiniest amount onto my finger. It was the smoothest thing I had ever felt. He wafted the bottle and told me to never forget the smell. He used the most conservative amount to repack my bottom bracket bearings for the race the next day. I gave it everything I had, and my dad was so proud to see me in the final sprint.

The day after my dad died, I rode my bike down the exact same route he took. It was raining and I went extra slow. He was riding an aluminum Eddy Merckx bike I built last year. My dad was picky about bikes, and we had conflicting tastes. I did not care for the Merckx and was going to sell it, but he wouldn’t let me. He loved how it handled, and had been riding it for months, so I gave it to him.

As I approached where he crashed, I kept telling myself I could have done something differently. Tears came to my eyes the closer I got to where he died. I want to find a way to blame myself for what happened, but I cannot deny his death was the result of going too fast and bad luck that he crashed where no one would find him. I kept saying aloud “I love you dad. I am so sorry. I can’t do this without you. I love you dad.”

The medulla regulates involuntary actions including breathing and heart rate, the same part of the brain my dad described to me years earlier on our drive to Berkeley. After severe head trauma, capillaries supplying blood to neurons rupture so blood can’t get where it’s needed.

Without oxygen or glucose, neurons in the medulla can no longer create action potentials along the Nodes of Ranvier, so my dad’s heart and breathing stopped, and he ultimately collapsed and died. If someone was there to call 911 and he was hospitalized, things may have turned out differently.

I keep thinking this is all one bad dream, but I know it’s not. Life without my dad is going change very fast, but I will never forget all the good he has done for the world. The night after his death, I had the worst headache I’ve ever had and couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of my dad’s last moments on this Earth, collapsed and just below the field of view of hundreds of passing cars on the freeway. I kept thinking I could have realized something was wrong and been with him.

He was a fighter, and I wish more than anything I could have been there. I imagined lifting his bloodied body over my shoulders and taking him to the 76 gas station and calling 911. I kept thinking: “I am so sorry. I love you dad.”

The biggest thing I feel without him is solitude. He meant so much to so many of us, so much of the world rested on his shoulders. I am genuinely scared. Everytime I step foot in the garage, I feel immense loneliness. I know my dad would want me to keep going and to continue working on cars and bikes, but it is so much harder without him.

I wanted to finish the last project my dad and I worked on, and my brother wanted to help, so the two of us set out replacing the timing belt on the Honda Civic with the parts my dad and I had got a few weeks earlier. Brimming with confidence after watching some guy on YouTube do it, I started taking parts off the car.

My dad and I changed timing belts before, but without him, I felt like a rock climber free soloing Half Dome. There was no safety net. A lot of me wanted to do what normal people do and just give the car to a mechanic, but I wanted to make my dad proud.

True to Murphy’s Law, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Bolts broke inside the engine block, simple tasks were anything but simple, and the crank pulley took me three days to pull off.

Exactly midway through the project, after replacing the tensioner and water pump, I lined up the crank and camshaft for the new timing belt. I wrapped the belt around the pulleys, but the belt didn’t have enough slack. I pulled as hard as I could, but after a few hours I needed to stop because my fingers were raw.

I was frustrated and wanted to get angry, but if my dad taught me anything about working on cars, it’s that anger will only make things worse. I took a break and watched some other guy on YouTube. The other guy was not helpful.

Tears came to my eyes as I reminded myself I no longer had my dad to ask for help, as I had done for the past 22 years.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I thought about how my dad would approach this problem. The well-beaten path was not working and I needed to make my own way. I took apart the tensioner and looked at how it worked. I broke it trying to add slack, but after two days, I figured out how to adjust the tensioner to get the slack I needed to properly install the belt.

My brother and I put everything back together, and I knew my dad was smiling looking down at us.

Life is short and we have to make the most of it. My dad lived the life he wanted. He did a lot of good for a lot of people. The most important thing he taught me was not an explicit lesson, it was a mindset. He knew what mattered, and he fought like hell for it.

If nothing else, I want everyone to know that my dad’s heart was always in the right place. He would drop anything, sacrifice everything, and give anything to help someone who needed it. I owe so much of who I am to the man he was. I am lucky to call him my dad, and I hope he is resting in peace.

He will always be in my heart.

I love you dad.