Dr. Mehmet Oz announced this week that his father, Dr. Mustafa Oz, died at the age of 93.
The Dr. Oz Show host shared a touching tribute to his dad on Saturday, sharing several photos of him throughout his life and remembering all the good ways Mustafa affected his life.
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“My dad passed away today at the age of 93. Dad changed everyone who met him. I remember as a child running behind his fast-moving legs while he made hospital rounds. Even as he aged and his legs no longer raced along, his mind never slowed down,” wrote Dr. Oz, 58.
“I fell in love with medicine after witnessing my dad do sometimes painful procedures on desperately sick patients who subsequently thanked him for saving their lives,” he continued.
“The opportunity to help is a powerful aphrodisiac and the responsibility to act should not be squandered, so he insisted that he and his children were ‘The Best,’ a contagious admonition,” he concluded.
On Sunday, he shared another photo of Mustafa, this time bundled up in a jacket and scarf, smiling for the camera. “Dad, we are all the shoulder of the serpentine obstacle course that you weathered for over 93 years so you take the straight and wide boulevard to heaven that you earned for every minute of your hard-fought life,” Oz wrote. “Enjoy the sweet journey while we earn your respect by fighting the battles that mattered to you.”
Oz’s daughter, Daphne Oz, also mourned her grandfather’s death. Alongside a black-and-white throwback photo of her grandparents with her father as a baby, The Chew alum called her grandfather “a brilliant surgeon, filled with the most relentless work ethic and pursuit of perfection.”
“He loved to tell the story of when he came to America after completing medical school as a lifelong scholarship student in Turkey and his mother told the pilot to ‘fly slow and low to the ground!’” Daphne wrote. “He was funny, fearless, tough, and the best bazaar bargainer. We will miss you, Buyuk Baba.”
In the caption of a sepia tone photo of her husband, John Jovanovic, and their three kids, she thanked family, friends and fans for their support while she and her family mourn their loss.
“Thank you all for your kindness and condolences. My grandfather lived a long and full life, and seeing his family grow and thrive made him the happiest. We are so lucky to have enjoyed all these years together, and I’m looking forward to keeping his memory alive for our children,” she wrote.
