My father, Layeequr Rahman (1938 - 2005) was born in the Dinajpur District of India, which became incorporated into East Pakistan during India's Partition in 1947. He had a very humble upbringing in a very poor household; he went to a local mosque for education until the cleric advised my grandfather, "he is a smart kid and should go to a real school". When he took the admissions test for the closest nearby school, which was several miles way, he knew mathematics and Arabic at an eighth-grade level, but he did not know his A, B, Cs. He was, however, granted admission, provided that he would put in extra time and effort to get up to speed in  English. He took this challenge and eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree with complete proficiency in  English, Urdu, Arabic, Bangla, and Persian. He was unable to take the Master's degree final exams due to financial constraints. So he went into the workforce as an aeronautical engineer and was posted in Karachi, West Pakistan.

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By 1971, a time of war for East Pakistan (modern-day Bangladesh), my father lost many family members. He was a transition person for his family, laying the foundation for the importance of education and becoming financially independent. He was Papa to me, my brother, and my sisters, but also to a lot of other people around us. We knew growing up that nothing took priority over education. We could never come up with a good enough excuse to miss school. We lived in rental houses, shared one small car amongst the family, sparingly took vacations, and shopped only for necessities, but we went to the best school in the city. If we missed our bus, Papa would drop us at school, and we would never hear the end of that mistake. This detour in his morning left him twenty minutes late to work, and that was just as well unacceptable. He always said, "Time is finite and a most precious commodity - use it wisely".

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One testament to the importance he placed on attending school was my 100% attendance award, which I earned every year between kindergarten and college. He believed that everyone can change his or her circumstance for the better if they worked hard and were educated. He was also very cognizant of the fact that many children and young adults quit school due to a financial burden. If he ever found anyone in that situation, he somehow squeezed enough out of our household budget to help them.

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After he passed away in 2005, my family discovered that he had found and helped a lot of such people; 2,500 people showed up at his funeral, many faces which we had never seen before. They would pay their respects and tell us that their child would not have been an engineer, architect, art major, etc., had Papa not discovered them at a shoe repair shack, snack stand, or cleaning cars outside of businesses. Papa had a stroke in 2003 that left him completely paralyzed on his right side, he couldn't talk after that, but he sure could smile. I was in the United States completing my subspecialty fellowship, and I had planned that when I finished my training in 2004, I would have all the resources, time, and care to give back to him. He had always been proud of my academic success and supported me in every way possible. Not that I could ever repay him for what he did for me, but I thought that I would have the financial strength and skills to take care of him as he got old.

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He never did get old, we lost him too soon, and I had my daughter the year that he passed on. Sometimes I feel that a little piece of him came back to me when she was born. It was devastating to know that now that I was finally in a position to give back and take care of him, he wasn't there. Then I remembered what he always said, "You always have choices, you take one step in the right direction, and God will take ten". I realised that the way to give back would be to pay forward. While Papa is not in this world anymore, I know his legacy can be. This, Papa's Legacy Foundation, is my step in the right direction...

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- Rakhshanda, daughter of Layeequr Rahman