Goodfellows52: Our condolence to people of France

Goodfellows52: Our condolence to people of France: “ They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that. ” Audie Murphy , American World War II...

Our condolence to people of France

“They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that.”

Audie Murphy, American World War II hero

“Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.”

Jurgen Habermas

“The enemy for the fanatic is pleasure, which makes it extremely important to continue to indulge in pleasure. Dance madly. That is how you get rid of terrorism.”

Salman Rushdie

“Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.”

Christopher Hitchens

To the proud and good people of France,

You gave us the Statue of Liberty, helped our ancestors win their freedom in 1783 and you remain the devout caretakers of our American war dead in pristine cemeteries across your great nation.

I can’t speak for all of my countrymen, but my family stands by the French and we offer our condolences to the families who lost loved ones in another inane act of terrorism in your country.

What fanatics did was solidify the bonds between free nations and brought worldwide condemnation from all of us. Each terrorist act brings us all together and it accomplishes nothing except to continue a war without end.

There will be blood, but it will ebb from the veins of terrorists whose misguided beliefs and nefarious ways continue to unite those who believe in the greater good.

War is like a street fight — somebody’s not getting up, and our survival depends our decisive actions.

The fanatic doesn’t understand an open and free society, which fosters ideas, ideals and the advancement of its people. France and its open-minded people have always enjoyed the fine arts and their culinary delights have been the talk of Europe.

Flip through the pages of history and there are centuries of proof that terrorizing a civilian population will bring only doom upon the perpetrators of violence.

The French fought against Hitler, whose V-2 rockets terrorized London. But all those missiles did was strengthen the resolve of the British as they huddled in underground subway tunnels. The French Underground was responsible for numerous historic acts of bravery during the D-Day invasion of France in 1944.

In World War I, the Germans used giant artillery pieces such the Paris Gun to instill fear in the French population. It is obviously those massive guns failed after the Allies won the war in 1918.

When the World Trade Towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 in the United States, France supported us and the Canadians allowed American passenger planes to land after the United States ordered all civilian aircraft to stand down. The Holocaust united the Jewish people and Israel was born in 1948. America was the first to recognize this new nation.

Grand ideas like our U.S. constitution, which includes the phrase: “All men are created equal,” inspired a new nation. Nobody ever wrote a sentence like that in the history of mankind. That one bold stroke of a pen set the bar for all humanity, started our Civil War that put an end to slavery and sparked the civil rights movement in this country 100 years later. Gays can no longer be discriminated and are allowed to marry without retribution or harrassment thanks to our just laws.

The terrorist, with their warped views and unjust laws, will never comprehend a free state, but they know we will never back down or retreat.

So no matter what these bastards do, liberty and the greater good will prevail. But if we allow paranoia and hatred to seize us, these miscreants will have the upper hand.

At this moment, our skyscrapers are displaying the colors of the French flag and an unscheduled rendition of your country’s national anthem was performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

We feel your pain, but you are not alone.

Goodfellows52: Missing in action — forever

Goodfellows52: Missing in action — forever: Albert John Blasi through the years "He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me w...

Missing in action — forever

Albert John Blasi through the years

"He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."

                                   ~Clarence Budington Kelland

CAPE ELIZABETH — Lingering grief is like being buried alive in a shallow grave.

Melancholy is grief’s best friend, and if you immerse yourself in endless desolation, you will be consumed by your own sorrow — like a rotting corpse resting in the deep earth.

I won’t allow that kind of emptiness to rule my life. My father wouldn’t tolerate it, either. And I don’t have a choice — I have a family that still needs me despite my sadness.

My father, Albert John Blasi, died this weekend on Nov. 8, 2014 — another casualty of a cruel disease known as Alzheimer’s. He was buried with full military honors after serving a tour of duty during the occupation of Germany in 1954. Actually, he played baseball for the U.S. Army’s post teams. It was a good gig, and instead of lugging around an M-1 Garand rifle, he carried a bat and donned a glove on a baseball diamond somewhere in Europe.

I have this great picture of him playing catch at Zepplin Field where Hitler’s Nazis rallied during World War II. Behind my father is a destroyed, concrete swastika — remnants of the Third Reich.

There were hundreds of mourners at his wake and a police escort accompanied the hearse to the cemetery where he was buried in Peabody, Mass.

I still have the flag which was draped over his coffin on that cold day. It sits in a case that rests on top of a curio cabinet that I bought for my parents long ago. Call it a shrine, if you like, but it doesn’t alleviate the pain that goes along with my father’s loss.

That takes time, sometimes counseling, and a begrudging acceptance, and there is no closure — just a deep wound that never heals.

He was a teacher, coach and father whose integrity, loyalty and compassion made him a respected member in a city just outside Boston, and his reputation as the Revere High baseball skipper for 42 years extended well beyond the borders of the Greater Boston area. Boston Globe writer Martin Pave did a wonderful job with his half-page article about my dad.

It is an anniversary that no one in our family cares to celebrate. The memories are painful and his permanent absence has left us all with a sense of longing and sadness.

The new normal is impossible to get used to, and there is not a day I don’t think about him or my mother. The house at 17 McClure Street has been sold, and that’s a different kind of sadness.

I knew hanging around my home recalling his last moments on earth would trigger paralyzing grief and a strong bout of depression.

That wasn’t going to happen. I did that for four years as I watched his beautiful mind and precious memories slip away as the Alzheimer’s slowly progressed.

So I spent this weekend visiting the ocean and walking trails along the coast with my son who came home from college for the weekend. He made these past few days bearable.

I grew up in a seaside community and I have always found the turbulent waters of the Atlantic a calming force in my life. We are all connected to the sea. 

The late President John F Kennedy said, “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it — we are going back from whence we came.”

Maybe that is why we headed south to visit one of our old stomping grounds — Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth. It offers stunning views of the coastline and made me feel a helluva lot better to see the cold salt water lap against the shoreline and breath in the sea air on a chilly, windy November day.

For the next hour, I thought about my father, but in a positive way, avoiding the misery that accompanies grief.

Somedays are harder than others, but I have come to terms with his death, and although I miss him every day, I feel I was lucky to have parents who gave a damn about their four kids and put them first in their lives.

That feeling of loss never goes away as my grief subsides and acceptance takes a firm hold.

I see my father in my son and in my sisters’ children, too.

He lives on in all of us, but I still miss the man who stood for something good.

That will never change.