Roderick Joseph David Moldrich lived a big life. And it started all the way back in Grandpass, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was born to Dagmar, a field medic and once aspiring nun, and to Chumpo, a clark in the bustling city. He was Dagmars second child, and all-in-all a family of 9 siblings. He went to St Joseph Catholic school.

He was a restless, inventive, and sometimes mischievous child. He would use caustic soda to make lifting gas to inflate balloons. He made his own kites. He would take apart toy cars, and put them back together. He'd make string-and-can walky-talkies. He used to observe the watchmaker doing intricate repairs in his workshop. He'd catch Chameleons and swing them about. He climbed the mango tree and fell and broke his wrist, they thought he fell in the well. He made his own fireworks. (His fondness for pyrotechnics would get him into strife in his later life.) He'd make peashooters out of bamboo, and shoot mung beans at all his siblings. He would buy comics and hustle money from family and friends by charging to read them. He had a precocious love of reading and history.

Roderick was also a rebellious spirit. He refused to go to school and ran away from home at 13 to avoid it. He found a new hustle, doing door-to-door sales for a local aruvedic doctor, hawking his various treatments to villagers. When he finally returned home he refused to finish school, a family friend got him a job fixing outboard motors for Martenstyn's at the port of Negombo.

His knack for understanding how things work and fixing things didn't go unnoticed. And soon he was tapped on the shoulder to work on merchant ships. He learnt to be an electrician on the job. Electronics would be a hobby he would keep for his entire life. It was a hard slog, but it took him to many exotic places, and on his travels he was flush with cash.

He would save money to buy the clothes and bling to look just like the Beatles, and to match the vivid fashions of the time. He really loved expensive wristwatches and sunglasses. He would later bring his favourite Seiko watch with him to Australia. Though sometimes he would overspend, having to pawn all his vinyls upon return to make it to the next voyage.

The job was six months on and six months off. He worked on many different ships, including the Greek merchant navy ship, the Irene Xilas, and the M.S. Uruguay. He met Mei Ing in Taiwan, with whom he had a long relationship. Though he might have had a girl in every port. He travelled all around Asia and even as far as Morocco and South Africa. He sampled from many cuisines, he learnt many languages, and he enjoyed spending time with the Greeks on the Irene Xilas. While on land, his cousin Jessie's mother, an organist, introduced him to music. He was a natural and soon taught himself how to play the rhythm guitar by ear, playing his favourites like Trini Lopez and the Beatles.

He would meet Jeanne, his future wife, at a dance, but she almost didn't show up. Earlier that day her mother asked her to hold a very heavy and swollen jackfruit atop a chair while the servant was cutting the stem. The chair tipped, throwing her into a rusty barrel. She managed to dust herself off and make it to the dance, so she could chaperone her sister Rosemary to meet Roderick's brother Ryle. Roderick so happened to join his brother at the dance and there they met. They then met a few more times, and got to know each other, though their time was interrupted by Roderick's next voyage.

However, soon Jeanne's family had decided they would move to Melbourne, Australia. And so Roderick said goodbye to her at the airport in 1970. By then, Ryle had already moved the year prior in 1969, and it was only a matter of time before the other Moldrichs followed one-by-one. The older brother Ralph came soon later after Jeanne, and the following year, Roderick was there.

His first job was at the Victorian railways. He hardly slept. He would wake for his job at the railways at four in the morning. Straight after work he would travel to Coburg and have tea with Jeanne's mother, awaiting her return from her job at the Motor Registration Department in Carlton. He would have dinner and strong coffee—in true Greek style—at their home, and then madly rush to the midnight train to Caulfield to his aunt Trixy's house where he was living. Waiting for him at the table would be his second dinner. It was an exhausting schedule, but he would joke to Jeanne by placing matchsticks between his eyelids to keep them open! On occasions he'd be working a later shift, and Jeanne would meet him after work at Flinders Street station to roam around the city. They would eat at the diners, play the jukeboxes, go to the movies, and just generally loaf around.

After a whirlwind year that was stressing Jeanne's mother no end, he got engaged with Jeanne in July '72, two days after his birthday. In February 1973, Jeanne and Roderick were married and moved to Coburg. Their first child, Brodie, was born that November.

The end of '72, Roderick got a plush government job in the law department, but in terrible judgement he lit a string of crackers under the much maligned boss's chair. The boss was unamused and promptly forced him to resign his position. He then worked as a clerk at Steel Castings in Bertie Street, Port Melbourne. It was hot as hell at the foundry, but he worked in the comfort of the main office while regretting his poor life decisions… even if his old boss deserved it.

After eating humble pie, Roderick pooled his income with Jeanne to build their dream house. One income paid the bills, the other saved for the deposit. In 1974, Jeanne and Roderick built a house in Dover Street, St. Albans. Rock was blasted away to make the foundations. Atop was built a 3 bedroom house with a kitchen, family room, and corner windows, that would flood the house with natural light, even in winter. It was a cosy comfortable house for a growing family, and it was adored by their new son Brodie. This was a time of great change in Australia, with housing estates springing up in every corner. People used to call them mushroom estates. But Rod and Jeanne's house was unique amongst them. Unlike today, it was common for new young families to be able to afford their own new house on regular incomes.

Jeanne kept on working after a 4 month break for Brodie, with her mother, Mary, looking after him during the day. Both Roderick and Jeanne worked hard to provide for him. Roderick used to sit in bed next to Brodie each morning and watch Tom and Jerry and Road Runner, while Jeanne cooked rice and curry. It was a happy family, but a couple of years later they decided one is not enough, and in 1976, Jeanne became pregnant for Stuart. Unfortunately soon after, Roderick's father passed away in Sri Lanka, which had a devastating effect on him. Roderick's mother Dagmar then migrated from Sri Lanka to live with her daughter Flame, who had arrived a few years earlier, and Stuart was born later that year.

As Dagmar was despondent at the loss of her husband, it was decided that they would sell their house in St. Albans, and move to Keysborough to be near her. It was an older house. It had a fish pond, and a massive apricot tree out the back. With time, they became again accustomed to a new place and set down roots.

At a funeral, Roderick became reacquainted with his cousins from Sri Lanka who'd also moved to Melbourne. It was actually their mother that had taught Rod music back in Colombo. Soon after, they conspired to start their own pop-rock band, Sound Spectrum. They gigged at large restaurants around Melbourne and they practiced once a week. Roderick, seeking a greater share from himself, departed the band to become a solo act. Flame's husband Derrick was also a performer and would pass on extra gigs that he couldn't fit in his schedule.

With two kids and living far from her work, Jeanne left her job. With mortgage payments up, Roderick would juggle his singing gigs along with his clerical job at the steelworks. He picked up the hobby of caligraphy as his workload reduced at the factory. He would maintain his penmanship for the rest of his life. Work continued to dwindle and he was slowly encouraged to leave in the early 80s, a time when computers and spreadsheets came for many clerical jobs. It was perhaps this moment that inspired his future interest in computers.

He kept up his singing gigs, when his 3rd child, Jarrod was born. Still at a loss for work, a new scheme emerged with some of his family. They had caught wind of an abandoned shipment of tea that had arrived at the docks, ripe for the picking. Roderick secured a grand in 1983 dollars, and filled a whole bedroom with tea. Jeanne scoured the Yellow Pages for cafeterias, and they both sold commercial quantities of tea out of their house. The profits payed for much of their mortgage. The supply of tea quickly dried up, with desperate cafeterias scampering to find new suppliers.

With time, and help from his sisters, Roderick applied to a number of jobs. He finally made the lateral move from clerical work to salesman at the whitegoods and hifi store, Billy Guyatts in Carnegie. His history of electrical work, love of sound equipment, and that knack for salemanship he had honed in childhood hustling years, made this a perfect match. He enjoyed the work, but after a few years, with the onset of the breathing problems that would plague him for the rest of his life, he looked for a home in the warmer climate of Queensland.

And perhaps it was also a pining for the sea that led him to the Redcliffe Peninsula, north of Brisbane. And after he found a place with the help of Jeanne's relatives, the family uprooted and moved in 1988. The first six months, he tried his hand at real estate work, but it didn't work out. In the end, he went back to his usual jam of whitegood sales at Errol Stewarts Warehouse. He read every trick in the sales book, and he soon became a top achiever across the whole state. Soon after, his eldest sister, Shirley, and then his mother Dagmar died in the early 90s.

His love of hifi, saw him switch jobs to Brashs in Strathpine, where he became one of the top two salesman in the chain nationwide. He loved his work and excelled at it. On the weekends he would still play and sing jazz and bossa nova favourites in the downstairs room, like Sunny and The Girl From Ipanema.

Jeanne became pregnant with his fourth child, Amber. He was at the ready with one of the first brick-sized mobile phones, lended to him by Brashs management. When her water's broke, he was there within 20 minutes to help his wife deliver her. Amber was the daughter he thought he'd never have.

But his health declined further. Work called him Panadol Moldrich. His collitis, asthma, and back pain coalesced into an intolerable suffering. He soon left his work. His doctor at the time, in serious misjudgement, prescribed him long-term Prednisone treatment. This later caused early onset diabetes, and he needed cataract surgery within months of that treatment. In a further tragedy, he lost his eldest son, Brodie. It was yet another loss of family that would have a devastating effect on him.

But he kept on keeping on for the rest of the 90s. He would often be tinkering around in the garage with his soldering iron and multimeter, just as he would have been on the ships. And put his array of sound equipment to good use, hosting jams and singalongs with family that had also moved to Queensland. In the 2000s, he found the local country music club, starting a new chapter in his life. He made lots of new friends, and often they would come visit the house to play and sing in his makeshift studio downstairs, often to the distress of the back-house neighbour.

In the mid-2000s, he suddenly he lost sensation in both hands. The Redcliffe Hospital treated his complaints unseriously. They made him wait in emergency for 9 hours, but when they finally gave him a CT scan, they quickly speeded him to surgery at Royal Brisbane. He was never able to play rhythm guitar ever again. With another child starting school, financially times were tough once more. He started a little garage business repairing and selling used computers, putting his electrical knowledge and salemanship back to good use. That little hustle would tide the household over.

Soon after the war ended in Sri Lanka, in 2010, he decided it was safe enough to travel with his family back to his homeland. The remainder of that decade, he would spend making trips overseas. He made many returns back to Sri Lanka with Jeanne, to see relatives, to witness the Pera Hera in Kandy, and to climb Sigiri.

And in 2017 he made the trip of his lifetime. It was an unexpected message from a German, that noticed the particular spelling of his last name on Facebook. That message sparked a connection that spanned centuries. With the help of Roderick, Jan Moltrecht who lived in the seaside port town of Kiel, was able to piece the puzzle of the Moldrich family tree all the way back to his own ancestors in Germany. Jan organised a gathering of all the Moltrechts, and included their new found diaspora in Australia. Roderick and Jeanne, made their first and only journey together to Europe. They visited Rod's ancestral town in Magdeburg. They were hosted by the mayor. They made many new friends. They also toured farther afield in Paris and London, whiling away the time in museums and galleries. In spite of the pain shooting through his legs, Rod popped a few oxycontin and walked as far as he could, with the same sense of adventure as he had visiting those many port towns in his youth. He perhaps never imagined in his sailing days that he would be one day in the very heart of central Europe. He always wished he could return, but his steady decline in health continued to humble him, and then Covid put a complete stop to his travels.

In 2019, the grandchild he thought he might never have was born. He would hold Braxton, so he could play with all the light switches – perhaps to instil in him his same love of electronics. In some years, Braxton would show glimmers of the rebellious nature and childhood imagination of his poppy, Roderick.

The decline still continued. After the lockdowns, and in spite of the vaccines, he contracted Covid and was hospitalised. In the following years he had falls, some major, some minor. Soon after the birth of Hana, the second grandchild he thought he wouldn't have, his health issues started to snowball. He had one major fall at hospital that put him in rehab for 3 months. And by the end of over 4 months of hospital treatment he couldn't believe he made it back to his own home. From then on, he was instilled with a deep gratitude for his freedom, and a yearning to use every last ounce of his vitality to experience the world. He made a slow but steady recovery. He was then diagnosed with lung cancer, but to the befuddlement of his long-serving GP, Dr. Hein, he went into full remission.

Eventually he got well enough to make it to Melbourne—one last time—to see his siblings, and speak about the old times back in Sri Lanka. Before leaving Melbourne he bought Jeanne a spectacular ruby ring, to make up for having missed their 50th wedding anniversary due to his ill health.

In spite of his decline, he accepted his coming fate with grace. Not letting anyone on how hard each breath was, he spent his last year of life discretely putting his affairs in order. Every day he would try to coax his wife to go dine and drink Chai lattes with him, and loaf around the shops, just like they used to back in their early romance in Melbourne. Right up to the last week of his life he was driving, he was talking, and he would walk up and down the stairs of his two storey house – an Everest climb every day – with no complaint. He'd never let on, because he never ever wanted to be in a hospital again.

All the same, the fatigue took him, and he had one last catastrophic fall, which he could not recover from. He spoke until the end. He let Jeanne know of his appreciation for constantly being by his side. And in his final hours, he spoke to each of his children, and he asked where his grandson Braxton was. He put on a brave face right until the last moment. And from those first moments in Grandpass, Colombo, to his final in Redcliffe, Roderick lived his big life.