Nino Castellano

September 8th was my father's 54th birthday. He was still in the hospital, and actually doing worse than he had been, so it was tough to celebrate it in any way. Still, I turned on the Yankees game and sat down next to him to watch it, something we would have done if he was healthy and well. Throughout the game, he seemed to be getting worse with an infection that lead him to have a high fever. Even with all of this happening around us, we both were able to watch the game, as Nick Swisher came through to hit a walk-off home-run to win the game for the Yankees as they continued to roll to the best record in the major leagues. It was a good birthday gift for my dad.

He still was fighting his infection though. At times he was sweating profusely and at other times he was freezing cold. He was receiving his antibiotics and other medicine, as well as having one of those wet blankets on him. There wasn't much for me to do though except be by his side. I sat there and finished up the book I was reading, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. It was a great book, possibly one of the best I have ever read. The post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son traveling on a road, trying to survive without any food and supplies, while also trying to avoid other survivors who have turned to cannibalism to live. It was beautifully written, but I knew it was coming to a tragic end as I got closer and closer to the last page. At the end, the father passes away.

Soon after I finished my book, my own father passed away. It was roughly 2:30am on September 9th. He was losing his fight with the infection, and as was his wishes, my mother and I made the decision to take him off all his medications and his life-support. I held his freezing hand the entire time as he made his way to death. Just as I thought his breathing came to a halt, he made one last quick grip on my hand, squeezing it as to tell me everything was going to be alright, and that he loved me. I certainly loved him.

The next few days were somewhat a blur to me. I was mostly focused on how both my sister and my mother were handling the situations. Thankfully, they both seemed to be holding in there. Thankfully too, my father had already made his wishes clear on what he wanted, and that didn't include and traditional funeral and wake. We have never been a religious family, and I agreed that anything traditional like that would have been in contrast to what my father was all about. Instead, he wanted to be cremated. Before doing this though, we had my grandmother come up and we set up a viewing of the body for her to say her goodbyes and get closure.

We then set up a memorial service at the Partners in Restorative Initiative in Rochester, which is an organization that my dad was a board member of. It was nothing formal, but instead it was just a little get-together with some food where his friends, family, and coworkers could remember his life and accomplishments. We also set up a silent auction where people could bid on pictures that I had enlarged, restored, and framed. It was a success on many levels. I think everyone enjoyed it and it was something my dad would have enjoyed too.

After his memorial, we really celebrated his life by having many people back over to the house for a house party that reached epic proportions. This was something that my father would have loved, as he was always a man who wanted to share the company of his friends and some drinks and some fun times. The drinks were flowing, fireworks were being lit off, and all his friends and loved ones were sharing stories about all the great times in my father's life. It was a perfect sending off for him.