Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Most Important Speech of my Life...



On September 10th, 2012, I stood on the alter at St. Norbert's Church, surrounded by my sister and three brothers, and delivered the most important speech of my life - my Father's eulogy...

How lucky are we, the children of Betty and Al, to be born into such a large, loving and close-knit family.

Mammoth 1976
 Dad loved our Mother for 50 years.  

Dad designed the house in Villa Park that we all grew up in.

He designed the cabin in Big Bear where we all saw snow for the first time and learned how to ski.  He refused to install a TV in the cabin, showing us the importance of bonding as a family over reading books together, playing games and working on jigsaw puzzles while eating his favorite treat – frozen M&Ms. 


We drove many miles in our family van every summer and enjoyed the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, river rafting in Colorado, the redwoods, sliding down the sand dunes, the world’s fair, Canada…and as adults, just a few years ago, we traveled to Italy where we met his Italian relatives he never knew he had.

Our beautiful Italian family

More beautiful Italian family

Dad provided us with warm, happy memories as children: laying out picnic blankets in the TV room to eat our popcorn out of our baskets for family movie nights, double features at the drive inn movies, bowling every Sunday at Regal Lanes, Black Angus dinner after church, many years of piano lessons...

Graduation from CSUF
He laid a solid foundation for us by instilling the belief that having a strong education will open the door to whatever we wanted in life.  After seeing us through eight years at St. Norbert’s School, guiding us thru our teenage years at Villa Park High School, and celebrating our graduations from Cal State Fullerton, we each set off to conquer the world debt free - thanks to Dad. 


Dancing at my brother Troy's wedding.


He encouraged us to pursue our dreams, weather it was in business, finance, art, theatre, or creating families of our own, and he always welcomed us back home with open arms if we needed a place to start fresh or get our bearings before embracing the world again. There was always a place called Home for us.

Hugs in Italy
The last week of Dad’s life was filled with tears, prayers, concern and constant care for him and each other. Those were moments that all of us were privileged to have shared, no matter how difficult it was, because the presence of love, family, friends, and God was there, blanketing us with a sense of community and peace. We were lucky enough to have been at Dad’s side in the last moment of his life and we could not have asked God for a more peaceful and beautiful transition.  He slipped away and found his place in heaven so easily that we were left astounded and speechless.  Calm and silent. 




Thank you Lord, for giving our Dad such a poignant end to such a long, fruitful and beautiful life. We will live on, cherishing the legacy of love and family that he left behind, building on that legacy so it may continue to thrive after we have found our place in heaven with you as well.

I love you, Dad, and I'll see you again some day...