He who has daughters is always a shepherd.” — Thomas Jefferson

What is love? I don’t know that any of us actually have the answer to that question but I do know what it isn’t – it isn’t Fucking Rupert, so that’s the last mention he gets this week.

I love my family, I love chocolate, I love baseball, I love Port Douglas, I love Woody the dachshund, I love my friends, bloody hell – I even love Collingwood after last night’s win but when I say “I love my daughter Megan” I am talking about something different. The love a Father feels for his daughter is unique. No matter how old your Daughter is and how successful she becomes, she will always be your little girl and in your eyes, the most beautiful girl in the World.

Megan Robyn Edwards was born in Essendon on February 3, 1981 and unlike he who shall remain nameless (John Edwards😀), she’s managed to make it through to 2023 without causing her Mum and Dad too many headaches. It was a running Family joke that I could never remember the date of her birth. As my end draws closer, I should probably own up Megs that your birth date was never unrecalled – third of second eighty-one (3,2,1) was pretty easy to commit to memory. Just because Megan didn’t cause us many sleepless nights, you mustn’t assume that she led a quiet or boring life but rather it is probably is an indication that she was smart enough to hide her “away from home” indiscretions pretty well. I know her two wonderful children are in great hands as they navigate the complexities of today’s World.

Being an Edwards, Megan spent plenty of time at Essendon Baseball Club growing up. To this day, she still holds the record for Getting Hit By A Pitched Ball in any Victorian Baseball Association Season. It was her go to method for getting on base. Unsurprisingly, as the pitchers started to throw a bit harder and taking one for the Team hurt a bit more, she determined that discretion was the better part of valour, and jumped the fence from the baseball field to the tennis court and she was forever lost to the great game⚾️. Looking at this old photo, the Coach in me is drawn to the fact that the batter has her eyes closed. If only I’d picked up on that little technical flaw at the time she was playing, she may well have hit the ball more often than the ball hit her. She did make a major contribution to my baseball career by donning the cheerleading outfit, waving the pom-poms and putting the “whammy” on opposition players in our most important games. I loved having her at the field.

Not too long after giving baseball away, Megan started accompanying me to the Track whenever her school commitments would allow. Eventually this led to her ownership of Australia’s Champion Two Year Old Filly, Pelicanrama and what a ride that was for all the Family but in particular for Megan and myself. Pelicanrama won a brace of Classics throughout Australia that year and Megan and I were on course for all of them. Just as I went from being Russell Edwards to being John Edwards’s Father at the Ball Park, I progressed from being Russell Edwards to being Megan Edwards’s Dad at the Race Track. Both were identity changes I was absolutely wrapped to accept. One memorable night after what I’m sure was another “fill up” night at Moonee Valley, we were driving home and Megan asked me who the sailors were I was discussing on track. Eventually I managed to established that the “sailors” being discussed were actually the “semen” collections from a Stallion we owned. Semen – Seaman: Tomato – Tomato. The years spent with Megan around the horses remain some of the happiest of my life. They were wonderful times.

The times we spent travelling with the kids were always precious to us. Megan travelled to the USA with us on multiple occasions, spent weeks away with us attending Racing Carnivals in NSW, Tasmania and New Zealand, holidayed in Bali with us, ran in two City To Surfs in Sydney with her Dad, flew to Sweden to watch our Champion Trotter, Knight Pistol compete against the World’s best and in what was probably our best holiday as a family, stayed with us in a third floor, four bedroom apartment in a Houseman Building on Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris. We owned a Penthouse at Palm Cove at the time and after spending half an hour on an international House Swap site, I’d struck a deal to swap our Golf Course located Palm Cove Apartment with a Paris based Surgeon who loved golf and reef diving. The swap was for the best part of 4 weeks and after being greeted on arrival by the Surgeon’s mother to show us around, we basically lived as locals for the duration. An undoubted highlight of the stay was dinner at the Michelin Starred L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in the Pont Royal Hotel. The meal was a once in a lifetime experience and cost accordingly, but never for a second, have I regretted the spend. In the interest of enjoying whatever time I have left, I won’t tell you which of the Edwards girls actually fell down the stairs going to the basement Restrooms and when you look at the Restaurant seating below, it was probably a modern day miracle they both didn’t fall off their stools. To finish off a wonderful night, John and Megan dropped us back at the Apartment and headed out on the tiles until dawn. There might have been one or two local Bars they didn’t actually visit that night/morning but I suspect if there was, it was only because they were too drunk to find them. Megan didn’t resurface from her bedroom for the next 36 hours. Shouldn’t let the booze beat you Lovey.❤️

Having to hibernate after a night on the drink was not normal form for Megan. Her powers of recovery are legendary. Her 21st Birthday Party is testimony to her durability. Our very dear friend Sharon Ryan, life partner of Mick Barrett, was employed as “Mixer Of The Cocktails” for the Party and Sharon’s philosophy was “if one shot of Vodka in a Bloody Mary is good, a double shot is better”. By around 9.30 Megan was, shall we say, well on the way, and decided the best way to make it through to the early morning hours was to get rid of the 10 cocktails already consumed. After employing a Barry McKenzie “technicolour yawn” and a 10 minute hiatus, Megan was back to Sharon for more rocket fuel. She was even still standing at midnight for the speeches. Made her Dad so proud.😄

One of the holidays we took with a kids when Megan was at Primary School was a week in the snow at Mount Buller. It was the one and only time we went to the snow and the reason for that was simple. As a first time skier my abilities were limited (nonexistent actually) and at my first attempt navigating the Bourke Street Run I was a mortal danger to myself and anyone else who happened to be in my path. I eventually fell off somewhere near the bottom of the Run, took off my skis and swore that would be the last time I would ever take to the slopes. True to my word, the Edwards family henceforth chose holidays in the sun rather than holidays in the snow. I would often remind Megan after that trip that skiing was best left to those who grew up learning to ski and that it is really crazy that people will risk physical injury on skis when they just don’t know what they’re doing. Move forward approximately 20 years and Megan was living and working in Canberra and she called us to let us know she would have to go into Hospital for a knee reconstruction after a fall playing soccer at Parliament House in an after work competition. As she was going to be confined to bed post surgery she asked could Robyn go up to Canberra to nurse her until she was back on her feet. Robyn lives for those situations and was on the next available flight to Canberra. Now for the punch line! Robyn was visiting Megan in Hospital when the Surgeon came in to check on Megan and in conversation, he asked how she wrecked her knee. Megan looked at the Surgeon, looked at Mum and looked back at the Surgeon and sheepishly owned up that she’d had a fall fucking skiing! I guess I was pretty good at the old “told you so” when the kids were growing up and it’s instructive of her knowing what my response would be that she chose the Soccer explanation over the truth. ⛷️

Pretty early in adult life Megan confided in her Mum that she didn’t think she wanted to have kids and she asked would we be upset missing out on more Grandkids. Obviously our primary aim in life has always been to see both our kids live happy lives and if Megan believed her happiness would be best served by not having kids Robyn and I were perfectly comfortable with her decision. Commencing her life with David seemed to change Megan’s priorities and she’s now the wonderful mother of Robert and Ainsley. It’s a nonsense to think that having Children makes women mothers. It is as ridiculous as thinking someone buying a hammer automatically becomes a carpenter. Megan has learnt on the run and I like to think Robyn has helped guide her along the motherhood journey and she is simply a great Mum. The day of their Port Douglas Wedding remains one of the proudest days of my life. Looking back, I wish both Robyn and myself had walked Megan down the aisle together. Robyn deserved that.

God knows, I haven’t been a perfect Father but the one thing I will never regret is bringing my two children into this World. Sometimes I think that maybe I should have did some things differently, but honestly, I am pretty happy with where we finished up.❤️❤️❤️