Losing My Father Didn’t Mean I Lost His Love

This photograph is one of the few images of my father and me that survived a house fire many years ago. I was about four years old when it was taken. Although so many family photographs were lost, this one remains one of my greatest treasures, a quiet reminder of a love that shaped my life in ways I am still discovering. Every year on his birthday, I return to the lessons that shaped my life.

Lessons that continue to guide me, even decades after his passing.

My father, Rejji Mallaya, believed that learning should be joyful.

He didn’t simply teach us.

He inspired us.

When we were children, he gave each of us a dictionary. Every day, I would close my eyes, open it at random, place my finger on a word, and learn its meaning. If I already knew it, I tried again until I found one I didn’t.

I loved every minute of it.

I couldn’t wait to tell him what I had discovered.

But the dictionary was only the beginning.

Car journeys became adventures.

“Who can spot three red cars?”

“Who can find the first blue one?”

We played I Spy, Scrabble, Monopoly, Ludo, and one of my favourite games was choosing a long word and discovering how many smaller words were hidden inside it.

Without realising it, we were learning.

We were observing.

We were connecting ideas.

We were discovering patterns.

My father encouraged my poetry, my storytelling, my artistic expression and my love of music.

Most importantly, he believed in my intuition.

When I told him, as a little girl, that I wanted to become a lawyer, he didn’t smile politely or tell me to be realistic.

He believed I could.

Years later, he proudly drove me to my first day at university.

But there was another part of my childhood that shaped me, something I never fully understood until I became older.

Growing up, I was called many names., Bookworm, Nerd., Broomstick., Scarecrow., Four Eyes., Granny., Rich Girl., Veronica from Archie Comics.

Children can be cruel without understanding the weight of their words.

I was skinny.. I wore glasses. I loved books.. I was different.

And difference often becomes a target.

But here is the extraordinary part.

None of those names ever broke me.

None of them made me feel small.

None of them made me question my worth.

Because my father’s love had already built something inside me.

A quiet, unshakeable confidence.

He helped me develop a sense of self so strong that bullying never found a place to take root.. His belief in me became a shield..His encouragement became my anchor.. His presence became the reason I never felt insecure.

Today, after mentoring women and young people for more than thirty years, I see how deeply childhood bullying affects self-esteem around the world. I see how many children carry wounds from words spoken casually, carelessly, or cruelly.

And I wish every child could know what my father taught me.

You are the best version of yourself.

No one has the right to make you feel otherwise.

As I grew older, I realised my father wasn’t only teaching me through words.

He was teaching me through the life he lived.

My father was a successful businessman, and some of my earliest memories were spent in his supermarkets in Umhlanga Rocks, La Lucia and Glenashley.. I didn’t know it then, but I was receiving my very first lessons in business.

I watched how he greeted customers.

How he treated his staff with dignity.

How he solved problems without panic.

How he made decisions.

How he cared for our family.

And how he quietly supported people in the community.

Those moments became my first classroom.

No business textbook could have taught me what I learned simply by watching a man whose values were visible in everything he did.

Over the past thirty years as a coach and mentor, I have met many women who have shared a deep sadness with me.. ‘“My father never taught me anything.”

Whenever I hear those words, I gently encourage them to look again. Sometimes our greatest teachers don’t teach through lectures. They teach through the way they live.

Perhaps your father showed integrity by keeping his word.

Perhaps he demonstrated resilience by getting up every morning despite life’s challenges.

Perhaps he expressed love by working long hours to provide for his family.

Perhaps he taught kindness through the way he treated strangers.

Sometimes the greatest lessons are never spoken aloud.

They are quietly lived.

My father also taught my sister, Mellissa, and me another lesson that has stayed with us throughout our lives. He never wanted us to depend on a future partner for financial security.

He wanted us to become educated.

To work hard.

To build our own businesses.

To build our own independence.

To believe in our own capabilities.

But he also reminded us that independence was never about rejecting love.

He hoped we would one day choose a life partner not because we needed rescuing, but because we shared the same values. Friendship. Kindness. Mutual respect. Two people walking beside one another as equals. At the time, I didn’t fully appreciate those conversations. Today, I understand how far ahead of his time he was.

Then, in my final year of studying law, my father died suddenly at just forty-two years old. My world changed overnight. The future we had imagined together disappeared in an instant. For a long time, I thought I had lost more than my father. But over the years, I realised something extraordinary.

I had never lost his love.

His encouragement had already become my inner voice.

His belief had become part of my confidence.

His values had become my compass.

His curiosity had become the way I see the world.

Last year, when I first encountered artificial intelligence, I found myself fascinated by intelligence, systems and patterns.

Looking back, I don’t think that curiosity began with AI.

AI simply gave a new language to something my father had been nurturing since I was a little girl.

Today, my work explores AI governance, Pattern Orbit, Human Authority, Authorship and Accountability (HAAA™), and Execution Governance.

People sometimes ask me where these ideas come from.

The answer surprises even me.

I don’t think they began with technology.

I think they began with a father who believed in his daughter’s ability to think differently.

One of the ideas I often share today is:

“You are your biggest prompt.”

People sometimes think I’m only talking about AI.

I’m not.

Long before I ever wrote a prompt for a machine, life had already been writing prompts into me.

Every game my father played.

Every conversation we shared.

Every poem he encouraged.

Every story he listened to.

Every time he told me to trust my intuition.

Every time he believed in me, even when my dreams didn’t fit the expectations of others.

Those moments became the prompt that shaped the woman I would become.

And if your father is still with you, and your relationship has become distant, perhaps today is an invitation to reconnect.

Have the conversation.

Ask the questions.

Listen to his stories.

Tell him what he means to you.

Relationships are rarely perfect, but where there is love and willingness on both sides, healing can become one of life’s greatest gifts.

And if your father is no longer here, as mine isn’t, remember this.

Losing your father doesn’t always mean losing his love.

Sometimes the values he planted continue growing for the rest of your life.

As I look back now, I realise my father gave me an inheritance no fire could ever destroy.

Not money.

Not possessions.

Not photographs.

He gave me curiosity.

Courage.

Integrity.

Independence.

Compassion.

The confidence to think differently.

And the belief that I could build a life that reflected my own values.

Perhaps that is the greatest gift any parent can give a child.

Not a map for every step they will take.

But the confidence to keep walking, even when the path has never been travelled before.

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dad.

Thank you for believing in me long before I understood what that truly meant.

I carry your love, your wisdom and your lessons with me every single day.

With love, always.

Your daughter, Jayshree

❤️

An Invitation

If you are reading this today, I want to leave you with an invitation, one born from my father’s love and the confidence he planted in me long before I understood its power.

Wherever you are in the world, whatever names you were called, whatever wounds you carry from childhood or adulthood, remember this:

You are not defined by the words that tried to diminish you. You are defined by the truth of who you are. If you are raising a child, mentoring a girl, supporting a young woman, or simply walking beside someone who is still learning to believe in herself, become the voice that strengthens her confidence, not the one that weakens it. If you have ever been bullied, dismissed, underestimated or made to feel small, let today be the moment you reclaim your story.

Let today be the moment you speak to yourself with the kindness you always deserved.

And if you are a woman who has spent years doubting her worth, hear this clearly.

You are the best version of yourself.

No one has the right to make you feel otherwise.

Let us build communities, in our homes, our schools, our workplaces and here on World Pulse, where girls grow up confident, where women rise without apology, and where love becomes the loudest voice in a world that often forgets how powerful it can be.

Your story matters.

Your voice matters.

Your confidence matters.

And somewhere, in ways you may not yet see, someone is learning from the way you live, just as I learned from my father.

Perhaps that is how love lives on.

Not only in our memories, but in the lives we shape through the values we choose to pass forward. ❤️