| Thank you for your support & participation as we both mourn his departure and celebrate my dad, Gerry's life. |
| Muhammed Ali used to say "I am the Greatest" but he was clearly mistaken! |
| No human being is greater than a parent especially a father like Tata. |
| First, to come to grips with his death, there is no need to feel sorry for him. |
| He had a most remarkable life and at the end, was reconciled to the inevitable. |
| He approached it similar to Mark Twain when Twain wrote: |
| (Death)... has no terrors for me because I have already tried it before I was born- a hundred million years- and I have suffered more in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back on with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes." |
| So there really is no reason to feel sad for him. |
| However, it does seem appropriate to feel sorrow for each other since we will surely feel his loss in ways we can't even yet imagine. |
| I'd like to share with you another writing of Mark Twain as he reflected on his own loss when his daughter died of meningitis in 1896. |
| He wrote, "A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always, it is an essential-- there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevecobly lost.... It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster" |
| And so, be sorry for each other for we have surely suffered a loss of inestimable size... |
| All we can do is remember the words of his mother Mama Antonia and often repeated by his sister, Lucy: "Facciamo alla meglio" which means "We'll do the best we can!" His brother, Dan used to say "Pozze Ciuovede" and boy, is it raining now but hopefully by and by, the sun will come out again... |
| But also, this is a time to celebrate his life, the incredible journey and his accomplishments. |
| Henry David Thoreau the noted writer who marched to his own drummer and lived at Walden Pond once noted: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" and one could wonder if this applied to dad in his later years... |
| I don't believe it for a minute! |
| His family fled fascist oppression by emigrating to the USA... |
| He had divided the passage through life between two homelands... |
| He had survived through the upheaval of the great depression... |
| He had served his adopted country as an officer in the U.S. Army through the world-wide madness of WWII... |
| From the Halls of Montezuma's Revenge to the Shores of Sicily, he survived.... --actually that's a little poetic license since he really contracted Malaria while in Africa which is much worse than anything Montezuma ever dealt and in fact, he was barely alive during the weddding ceremony in Sicily-- Nana had to carry him down the aisle. |
| So when we saw him years after the incredible excitement of his journey through his youth, is it any wonder that the mood seemed rather subdued? |
| Could it be any different after all the heart-pounding excitement he had experienced? |
| His outwardly muted mood was not related to a lack of enjoyment of life, it reflected a decision he made to pursue the important and often simple joys that life offers: He loved his family but not the big gatherings with all the hoopla... |
| Sitting at the kitchen table telling stories or playng Poker for pennies... |
| He loved gardening, flowers, tomatoes, fruit trees and with his country/farming background he did it up big time-- when I was a boy, we had a fig tree in the back yard and in this climate, pretty remarkable that it produced large, sweet fruit every summer and every Fall, he made me bury the tree 3-4 feet under ground so it would survive winter's frost. And every Spring, he had me dig it up--not much fun in the digging and did I ever complain but the fruit was well worth the trouble! Eventually, it got so large, it was impossible to bury deep enough to avoid Winter's frost. Its time had come. |
| In recent years we planted tomatoes at the Cape and when he tended them, the plants were loaded. Last year, he was too frail to help and the venture met limited success. |
| In addition to gardening, he loved a good book, especially if it was about the war... |
| He enjoyed television especially the Westerns or sports on TV, especially the Celtics and Red Sox... |
| He didn't like to spend money to go to events -- as a result of living through the Depression, he hated to be wasteful or excessive: But for a while, he got free tickets to the Boston theatre and nightclub events courtesy of Filene's and he and mom would dress to kill and do the town. |
| And for some years, Red Sox tickets were sold at Filene's and with a special deal, he took me to Fenway to see Ted Williams and the rest. |
| And together, we enjoyed the Celtics with Cousy, Russell and Heinsohn & their multi-year world championship dynasty. His enjoyment of sports has been passed on and not only with me, my son Andy or daughter Melissa... |
| Last night, My sister Lory said to Father Jim that her husband Ralph was attracted to her only because she could talk about sports....I think there must be more to that story... |
| Was dad a great man? If you read his memoir there's a place where he denies it and says he was a simple man trying to do the best he could. Don't believe it for a second. He had a tremendous work ethic. A favorite expression was "anything worth doing is worth doing right" and he passed this on to all of us. In over forty years as an executive at Filene's, he rode the T in and out of Boston every day, in between worked a full day and then almost without exception, brought a big satchel of work home with him. And he sat in the kitchen and did the work with the TV in the background. And, he never complained about it! He was thankful for the opportunityto work hard and create a better life for his family. |
| Last night, I learned from one of his associates at Filene's that he came out of retirement to train her to do his old job and that she couldn't thank him enough. |
| Before starting his career, he had the chance to study art but declined the opening at an art school in order to earn income and give us all a better life. |
| So, when it comes to greatness, you can keep your philanthropists, philosophers, politicians, diplomats, missionaries and the like... |
| You know who I'm going to give the award to every time! He is the Greatest person I know.
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| Always country at heart despite having lived through amazing times... |
| Always willing to help with any problem but equally willing to tease the heck out of you if you gave him the opening... |
| Always trying to appear gruff on the outside while trying to hide one of the best hearts I've ever known... |
| Always willing to work extremely hard but looking for a good time to nap... |
| Always teaching us some choice Italian words in San Donato dialect such as "A Te e Sorita" or "a cavalho a la piede torta" |
| Always with a wink, a joke, a tease, a lesson, a love of Nature, a love of hard work, a love of family, a willing ear, an engaging smile, a helping hand, and a loving heart... |
| Always in our thoughts, our hearts and prayers... |
| After an exhausting, incredible journey, The Lion Sleeps Tonight... Always the Greatest!!! Always Tata....... |