Remembering my dear Dad
This past week, my father passed away. He was surrounded by love in his final moments. You can read more about a life well lived here.
I’m so grateful I had that time with him. Thank you to everyone who reached out with words of support — my Mom and I feel so loved. ❤️
My remembrance of my Dad from yesterday's service:
Kenneth Paul Mastroianni
November 22, 1939 -- August 5, 2022
~
One day my Dad asked my guitar teacher Scott to play his favorite traditional Spanish guitar piece — ‘Recuerdos de la Alhambra.’
It was an unusual request since Scott usually didn’t play for us. Most of our lessons revolved around him correcting my technique, because — and my mom remembers this well — I never wanted to rehearse or practice at home. Surprise surprise.
Scott obliged because he respected my Dad, as a fellow educator, but also a kindred spirit who loved nothing more than music.
There was so much music in my dad’s life. It brought him such joy.
For those of you who haven’t heard it, the piece is often mistaken for a duet. If you close your eyes while listening to it, it sounds like a duo is playing at once, with two guitars working off one another seamlessly. Each note quivers with warmth, and when played correctly, it sounds effortless.
As natural as breathing in and out.
It really is a lovely song.
Not traditionally a duet, it’s actually animated by a technique in which each note is plucked one after the other in quick succession by the player’s ring, middle, and index fingers.
When Scott played it for my dad, the room got so still.
As Scott played, my eyes drifted from him and focused on my father. His eyes were closed, lips curved in a slight smile.
He was at peace, he was happy.
That was him.
He loved music. He played it constantly, sang it constantly, sometimes to the annoyance of my mom, whistled it constantly around the house.
During our weekly lessons, I really got the sense my Dad was the one studying guitar more than me. He used to say he wished he studied it formally — perhaps nudging me… gently always… to take it a bit more seriously myself.
But, if you knew my Dad you knew formal lessons were unnecessary.
He was a musician.
He used to tell me about his childhood and teen years, where music was regularly a part of the life of his mother’s family, the Lanoues, a bonding activity with his dear cousin Bob, and, yes, songs also filled the halls of his dorm at St. Francis Xavier College in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Of course, many years later, he found a home in music and music found a home in him through his beloved Berkshire Hillsmen.
I would sit there on the couch with my homework in front of me, TV on in the background, and I’d look over at him, sitting reclined before his computer, headphones on, rehearsing softly the songs he needed to master each week.
He was a bass — the lowest register for a male singer — and he devoted so much time to get his part right.
When each Monday night rolled around, he would go off to rehearsal, and he would always come back a little lighter, a bit looser, freer.
To the Hillsmen here, he loved you all so much, and I know he so appreciated finding a brotherhood with all of you these past 21 years.
I think I can speak for both my mom and myself that we regret we didn’t share that love he had for music with him enough. It was his outlet for self-expression.
I realize now that if he shared an artist he discovered with you, if he let you in to his musical world, well that meant he loved you dearly.
And I wish I was a bit more receptive to that.
It’s funny, but over the past week I don’t think I’ve listened to music more.
Each night before bed the past seven days, I’ve been listening to ‘Songbird’ - it’s an album from one of his favorite singers -- Eva Cassidy.
One of the verses I especially love reads:
‘And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score/and I love you, I love you, I love you/Like never before’
I felt that so deeply just last Friday when my mom and I got back home, after we said good bye to my dear Dad.
I was so struck by how quiet it was, by the stillness enveloping our house. I didn’t hear a tree branch break; there was no rustle of leaves, and most crushingly for me, no bird songs.
For my entire life, I was accustomed to the consistent sound of the woods around us, of our home, which my parents and I have always — lovingly — called ‘Big Woody.’
Just silence.
It felt like the woods were in mourning and I like to think the gardens, and trees, and the animals who live in the woods around us were missing their dear friend.
The next day — Saturday — I took a walk through the woods in the back and I spoke a bit to my Dad. After I said a few things that needed to be said, I got back to the porch and sat.
And the strangest thing happened.
A breeze blew, the humidity broke, and I heard the birds sing.
You know, I’m just looking around this room today, and I see people from so many parts of my Dad’s life.
Former students, many of whom would go on to be teachers themselves, friends and colleagues, the Mastroianni family, the Callahans, nieces and nephews and cousins, the Hillsmen, my mom and me.
We’re all so different and yet one thing connects you to me and me to you and back again — and it’s love.
At the end of the day, isn’t that just the greatest gift someone can leave behind?
~
