Written the week my father died, in September 2021. Service details have been removed; everything else is as it was published.
Over the weekend, we lost a legend when Michael Di Cesaro succumbed to his years long battle with cancer. Dad got a few good blows in, extending his life twice with the miracle of modern medicine over the past ten years. Despite this extension, we feel we lost him too early at the age of 76, as he was very active right up until his last bout of illness slowed him down this past summer.
And I do mean active... Dad's most recent house renovation was an epic case study of DIY gumption. While he certainly worked alongside the likes of Denne, Chad, and Jon Knowles for much of the project, he nearly single handedly raised the supporting structure of the house with lolly columns and bottle jacks. This was the last of many Real Estate endeavors that he and Mom took on in the last decades of his life, all of which were successful turnarounds of properties that now are happy homes for others - in one case, his granddaughter, Annalisa.
Over the years, Dad has left his mark on many, often in brief interactions that led to long term relationships. He and his wife have traveled the world several times over, and enjoyed a solid stint as temporary residents of Nomadland with a sojourn to Alaska, hitting dozens of states and territories on the way in a Lincoln pickup truck towing their mobile living quarters.
Dad served the country during the Vietnam war as a translator intercepting communications from the lofty perch of a C-130, stationed in Okinawa, Japan. He followed that career with a long stint as a leader and entrepreneur in the hospitality industry, running hotels, opening and operating restaurants and catering hundreds of functions for thousands of partygoers. He managed to find time during these years to be quite the golfer, and shared the interest with the whole family. His dreams of joining the senior PGA, I think, were dashed the day Mom got a hole-in-one (on Father’s Day) and hastened her retirement from the game. He continued to play after that for sure, but some of the luster was lost.
He was a perennial entertainer. Dad would always have some remark that he understood to be a killer line - and every now and then it would find an audience. He loved arts such as music from his father’s era, theatre, opera, symphonies, Leon Redbone, Frank Zappa, and even the occasional bluegrass festival. I was with him when we both learned that a plunger could be played as an instrument. Dad was party to plenty of practical jokes, and certainly more than one cream pie to the face. In a nutshell, he knew how to have fun.
Dad’s interests didn’t end with Golf, arts, and parties. He was always a tinkerer and quite a savvy hand with technology in the early days of home computing. He loved the cosmos. He always had a photo from the Hubble or Chandra or what-not to share, often saved to his desktop, but never as a background because that was reserved usually for the youngest grandchild.
Michael is survived by his wife, Denne, his mother Dora, his sister Pat (husband Bob) children Kristi (husband Kurt), Chad(wife Tara), Judge (me and my wife Emily), and his grandchildren: Annalisa (husband Daniel ), Jeannelle (soon to be husband Toby), Malcolm, Oliver, Marin and Monroe. But wait, there’s more… Annalisa’s children, Dennie and Sullivan.
He will be missed.
Reception with offensively expensive champagne and embarrassingly cheap scotch to follow.
I write tributes for a living — eulogies, toasts, send-offs and keepsakes. See how that works.