A daughter remembers her beloved late father

In the loving memory of my late real father, who passed away May 11, 2011, Paolo Mortillaro.

My father was diagnosed with colon cancer March 29, 2011, and they gave him three months but he could not hang on so he passed very fast.

When I first found out, I went down as soon as possible and spent a whole month with him, and then I came back to Iqaluit after a trip to Cuba. He died after I got home, but he lived to see my birthday as he died only a week after my birthday.

My real father was the best father, even though we only reunited 17 years ago. I brought him up here a year after I found him, and he visited another time, so he has seen this place in the winter and in the summer.

He loved it and when I took him out on a skidoo ride, he was shocked and looked at me and said very seriously, Pauline my little girl, where in the hell are we, or what the hell are you doing to me.

I said, we are on the land and this is what your little girl enjoys doing. Anyway, I went to see my father and my Italian family each year after I found him, and then I didn’t see him for a couple of years, but always stayed in touch by phoning every week, and my aunts would contact me every week.

My father didn’t know how to use a cell phone until one day my aunt bought him one, so that he could stay in touch more often, and this meant for him to start calling me every day.

So he would call me every day for months and months until one day he decided he wasn’t going to pay the cell phone charges, because he said he didn’t use the phone that much. He didn’t understand that if you use it every day and every minute that it will cost a lot of money.

Poor man didn’t understand because he never had a cell before, so anyway he still kept the phone, but wouldn’t use it any more because they cut it off.

It wasn’t because he couldn’t afford it, but still refused to pay it because he thought, if he is only calling his little girl in the Arctic it should be free.

My father was awesome and funny like me. We had so much in common, and mostly we looked alike. Some people would say to me that I had his nose and that meant so much to him.

My father would have this little smirk each time he talked about my late real mother, Nee Eetoolook, who passed 19 years ago. I looked for my father two years after she passed away, because she always told me not to look for him until she dies. I always wondered why, until I found out that she was scared that if I found him he would take me away and never come back to the North where I was raised by my adopted parents.

I was very lucky though, as she still always told me who my father was and always gave me pictures of him. So I used one of the old pictures that she gave me to find him, and wow, he never changed until the day he died. My real father loved me so much as he felt so guilty and blamed himself for not bringing me up.

I told him never to feel that way as it wasn’t his fault and he didn’t even know where I was raised. When my real father went on holidays to Italy, my real mother was transferred to Moose Factory, Ont. from Toronto to another hospital to have me.

I just want to say a big thanks now to all of those that sent prayers when he was sick while I was by his bed side every moment. And I would like to say a little poem to him as I am sure he can read this and see it, and I can see the tears in his eyes.

Father you were the best.

Father you were there for me every minute and wouldn’t let me go once we reunited.

Father Paolo Mortillaro you are always going to be here with me each and every moment through dark and grey.

Father you were my sunshine as you put a smile on my face every second and every minute.

Father you left me behind, but I know we will meet again, and laugh together about everything.

Father I will never forget the day you ask me to take me to the play ground to swing me as if I was a little girl.

Father you will always be in my heart and your soul will always be by my side.

Father when I think of you I have tears rolling down my eyes because I am missing you so much.

Father please watch over me through hard times and good times, especially now.

I love you and miss you so much.

Thanks from the Mortillaro family and from me, Paolo Mortillaro’s first little girl, Pauline Oolayou Alainga.

Pauline Alainga
Iqaluit
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