Letting go of dad

"My father was my teacher. But most importantly he was a great dad."

Beau Bridges

REVERE/PEABODY, Mass. — He will no longer be seated at end of the couch with a newspaper in his lap and hot coffee in one hand.

He was the first family member you saw when you walked in the front door. Albert Blasi would look up from his sports section and smile when someone entered the parlor. There was usually a game or an old war movie on the TV.

“Hey, they are here. Good to see you all. Missed ya,” my dad said. “How was the ride down? Mom’s in the kitchen. Go see her.”

When I left Sunday morning to return to Maine, his reserved seat on the couch was vacant and will remain that way forever. I was still waiting for a hug and a chance to say goodbye. I walked up to the empty couch said aloud, “I will always miss you.”

My father, a dedicated educator and high school baseball coach for 44 years, died on a Saturday, Nov. 8 and was buried on the 14th at Puritan Lawn Cemetery in Peabody, Mass. He was 81. Taps was played by the honor guard. That’s when the tears began to roll down my cheeks. I watched through water-filled eyes as two fine young servicemen folded the American flag with care and precision. A sharp looking soldier walked straight toward me and presented me with the flag.

“I accept this with honor,” I said. The soldier stepped back after handing me the flag and slowly saluted it as we stared eye to eye.

My father, an Army veteran who served during the occupation of Germany, was honored for his service to his country.

He was an honorable man who believed all people should be treated with compassion and respect. That’s why hundreds turned out to pay their final respects to a man who not only served his country but made a difference in his community, classroom and on a baseball diamond.

How many people get to say that before their lives come to an end.

I spent nearly two hours at a funeral home as mourners shared their Al Blasi stories with family members who were grateful to see hundreds turn out to say goodbye to our father.

A mass honoring Albert John Blasi was held at St. Anthony’s Church. They say the church was brought over brick by brick from Italy. It is a magnificent structure with bells that can be heard all over the city and the inside of the building is lined with stained-glass windows and numerous works of art.

The funeral procession to the church and cemetery was led by a police escort as the Revere Police Department sealed off streets all over the city as a long trail of cars passed. The procession drove past my father’s home before we arrived in Peabody.

My siblings and I are now orphans with the passing of this wonderful man. My mom died four years ago, which was the first blow to her four children. Their absences have left us with a sense of endles longing for their return.

But it’s doesn’t matter how my father died. It is how he lived, and he lived life large and fulfilling. He was an educator who taught others to go forth in life and make a contribution to the greater good.

It has been said that we are not truly forgotten until the last person who knows us dies.

Considering what he has done for a multitude of people, I believe the memories of Albert John Blasi will live on for decades to come.

Winds of time

AUBURN, Maine — The problem with living a long life is that you lose people along the way, and when they leave, you are only left with powerful memories and their sentimental things that eventually become yours.

I am bringing this old windmill back to life. I wish I could do the same for my mother, Louise.

I am restoring it to honor a mother who meant to so much to her family.

I took the windmill back to Maine months after her death. It fell in disrepair and was rotting away in her cellar, and I was no longer around to repair it and place it on on their front lawn every spring.

Nobody wanted the dusty old thing, but I wanted to spare the windmill a fate from wasting away in the cellar. My mother and I both loved the bulky ornament. It wasn't anything fancy, but someone in her family made it, and that made it special to her. 

I am resurrecting this windmill out of love, and I wish I could do the same for Louise, who rests under manicured grass and shade provided by three healthy trees at Puritan Lawn Cemetery in Peabody, Mass.

She would love to see me give the neglected windmill a new lease on life. I would like to see her apart of my world again.

My father is not interested in woodworking and wanted no part of it as the windmill's three pieces sat in a remote corner of their damp cellar. So this wooden creation was left abandoned as spiders made a home out it and dampness ruined part of the wood.

She loved this unique lawn ornament because it was designed and built by her Uncle Ted Davis, a true gentleman from Pennsylvania. I only met him once, and I often thought of him as a kind man.

Every spring, she asked me to drag it out of the basement and drive the windmill's two stakes deep into the cold ground and station the wooden structure in the middle of the front lawn.

She was proud it and I was proud of Uncle Ted's design.

It was a tradition that lasted until I began attending college and my thoughts turned to textbooks, sports and girls. We both ended up forgetting about the windmill as life took its twists and turns and my parents became surrounded by loving grandchildren.

For some reason, the windmill wasn't that important to us until her death.

Last May, I packed up some of her treasures, and one of them was the windmill. I was numb as I rummaged through our dead parent's belongings for the first time. It was an unpleasant task and I felt like I as intruding on her personal life.

I didn't have much time to restore it last summer, and I kind of ignored it after carefully repairing one of its broken blades. But this year, my wife demanded that I get it ready for July 4th, and while the passing of time has not removed the nagging grief since her death, I began cleaning it and then painting it.

I painted the mid section a fire-engine red and applied white paint to the blades and the ladder that is attached to the structure with a hinge. I added a coat of blue to the sturdy base of the windmill, giving the restored ornament a "red, white, and blue" patriotic feeling to it.

I know Louise would approve of my work.

Over the years, I think it was overlooked as her four children were busy raising their children. I would see the windmill sitting in that lonely corner whenever I visited her in Revere.

So now the windmill has found a new home about 681 miles from where it originated - Waterford, Pennsylvania.

The 40-year-old windmill will sit in a flower bled in my manicured backyard and remind me of a woman who spent her youth wandering around her relatives' farms in the Keystone State during the Great Depression.