Some people deal with grief in certain ways. I have chosen to deal with mine with the fondest memories I can recall of my father. At 6'2 and 190 pounds, he was always an oak and had enough branches for all of us to grab onto.

I was in first grade at Edna C. Stevens school in Cromwell, Connecticut. It was 1970 and my brother Neal was just born, on January 5th. My dad came to school and came to my class to tell me I had a new baby brother and then brought me to the hospital to see him....I'll never forget how proud I was that day to welcome my new sibling and that I was the only one who my dad had gotten to become the "protector" of my new baby brother as I got to see him from behind that glass as the nurse held him up.

Later that same year and in the summer, we hit Shea Stadium to see the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies, my dad a native New Yorker, had us wait outside Shea for a glimpse at Willie Mays, my dad's favorite baseball player. Willie pulled up in his pink cadillac and we ran over to him with 50 other kids clamoring for his autograph, which we got. We were so proud of meeting Willie, that we showed everyone the autograph for months and years after that...My dad was proud because my brother and I loved something he loved as much. We also saw Felix Milan, Tom Seaver, Jerry Grote, Yogi Berra, Rusty Staub and other Mets as they all passed us.

I was seven and playing in the Cromwell little league with the Red Sox and my dad was a coach. I got called out on watching a strike three and said something to the umpire. My dad made me go and apologize to the umpire for what I said and told me that, "regardless if it was a good call or bad call, I had to learn no matter what to be a good sport". That same year when I ended up hitting my first home run, a ground ball that eluded the left fielder and center fielder and I ran the bases, he took my brother and I to ABC pizza house (Our favorite Cromwell pizza place) to celebrate my home run. The next year I would be picked to play with kids older than me because of my hitting ability, which was the result of my dad tossing me balls while under me so I could only react when I saw the ball appear, to work on my hand and eye coordination for hours during the summer, something we loved to do. I loved to play and it was always fun with my dad coaching.

I was nine years old and we were camping in Point Sebago, Maine. I was with my brother, Steve, sister Kathy and younger brother Neal, who was three years old at the time. My parents had our grandmother with us (my dad's mom) and we were in our Starcraft camper which slept six comfortably. My brother Steve and I shared Coleman, waterproof blue tent, which wasn't waterproof as we found out as the rains hit Point Sebago. As my parents herded us into the camper, my brother and I slept in the left wing of the camper, while my father slept on the portable bed with my brother Neal, which was below us. My mom, sister and grandmother all slept on the right wing of the camper. I remember gettting up to go to the bathroom and walking to the outdoor outhouse, which was a bathhouse and unbuttoning my pajama's to relieve myself. As I went to the bathroom I remember being fascinated by the spray and the power of my steady stream.

"DOUG!!!!", my father screamed, "DOUG", he screamed again, while grabbing my three year old brother and jumping off the portable bed, his head completely wet and his face soaking with droplets.

"Doug, did you just piss on my head?", he loudly questioned.

I didn't answer as I was sleepwalking or dreaming or something, but I was standing over his head on the portable bed and was peeing. I peed all over his head and all over his undershirt, which he was wearing. My mother had now turned on the light and was rubbing the sleep out her eyes and my sister, grandmother and brother were all up as I stood there, now completely in shock and embarrassed that I had drenched my father by dreaming I had been in the bathroom. All of a sudden, my three year old brother, burst out "Doug peed on dad" and everyone burst into laughter. My dad was laughing as the droplets came down his hair and off his face. He then told us he had been dreaming he was in the shower and couldn't stop the water from running into his face and was reaching up in the darkness when he saw me standing over him, peeing. We all laughed for days over the "golden shower" incident. It became a tradition for my dad to tell the story at holidays and get togethers, where everyone always burst out laughing in hysterics.

After the incident, I remember feeling terrible about what happened. My dad told me that it was the funniest experience he had ever been a part of and told me he was just glad I didn't poop instead of pee. We always laughed when we talked about the "Golden showers of Maine", which became an inside joke. How many people can get up, soaked in pee and grab your three year old brother in one arm and manage to keep their composure, then laugh about it with you the next day?

It was 1975 and my dad took me to my first hockey game I could remember, the New England Whalers and the Minnesota Fighting Saints. We would also attend that infamous playoff game where Nick Fotiu and Jack Carlson helped set a record of over 1,100 penalty minutes in one game. We also had seen the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers at the old MSG in New York in 1968, but I don't remember that. We also saw the New York Islanders and the Philadelphia Flyers in Uniondale in 1974, but I don't remember much of that either. My father's love of hockey transferred onto myself and my brother, Steve, who would play goalie after my dad's favorite Ranger, Emile Francis and I would play defense after my hero, Bobby Orr. Every Christmas the hockey gear would lay under the tree and my dad wearing snow boots with buckles, would run on the ice with us and play hockey. He would always love to play even though he couldn't skate.

In 1978, our home had burned down in Higganum while we were on vacation and our neighbors, the Breakfield's did it. We were in our favorite vacation spot, Point Sebago, Maine and had to come home the day after we left. We were sleeping in the camper when a knock on the camper door happened. It was the campground attendant, telling my dad to call his mother it was emergency. We walked to the campground office and called his mom, my grandmother to find out our house had burned down. My dad broke down crying. He hugged me and told me that he had to be strong for my siblings and my mother. I remember that walk back to the camper where he composed himself and then acted like everything would be alright. After we returned home and saw the damage and realized we lost everything, my dad made us all remember that while we lost memories and pictures, everything was replaceable. I 'll always remember how we worked with Mike Salafia construction to rebuild our home and actually help re do the rooms and floors while working together. Our neighbors were so kind to help us and work with us also. My dad, always assigned us tasks to keep my brother and I busy while the rebuilding was going on, whether moving endless piles of lumber, or digging up ash, we always cherished what we were given to do as we saw the progress of the rebuild.

It was June 23rd, 1999 and I was in Venice, Florida to get my dad from the hospital after major shoulder surgery. He had his A/C joint reconstructed. I was there for two purposes, to get him home and to bury my brother Steven, a prison guard in Wisconsin, who had just passed from a brain aneursym with no warning. As I went to the hospital with my mom to get my dad, my brother and sister were arriving from North Carolina and Detroit respectively. As my dad lay in the bed at the hospital, the man who I thought was indestructible broke down and cried as I was in the room with him. I had seen my father only cry twice in my life, when his father had passed from a heart attack and when our home in Higganum had been burned down, by our next door neighbor, who had been arrested previously for arson and theft break in.

As my father told me that day he didn't think he would be able to get through my brother's services, it made me become the oak, that he had always been and made me be the strong one for everyone around me who were all struggling with the loss of my brother. After the weekend, the services and burial, my father told me that he had never been prouder of my ability to keep everyone together and to get my siblings through the tough time we all struggled through. It was a few months after the funeral of my brother that I had realized how special his words were to me. Growing up, the words, " I love you" weren't a regular part of my dad's vocabulary, but he always had his way with words that meant achievement and merit were recognized. In the way he was capable of telling me, he told me he had never been prouder and that meant the world to me....

As I had gotten older and wiser, I had learned that the distance that both of my parents had with myself and my siblings was because of the loss of our older sister Karen, who at the age of three passed from leukemia after a prolonged painful illness and being hospitalized repeatedly. I remember the painful visits to the Rose Hill memorial cemetery in Rocky Hill at a young age and my parents both, crying and holding each other, but I too young to understand the depth of their loss and suffering, except to know my sister was with God and the angels.

My dad had told me after Steven passed he had been scared of losing another child and when Steve passed it truly broke his heart. It made a lot of sense with why he had always been the "oak" and the strong one in our family, but incapable of the sometime sensitive words that were needed to help me through my difficulties. With his passing strengthens my committment to be the oak for my wife and children, but the promise to be able to balance the sensitive with the courage. Being strong doesn't help if you can't be sensitive enough to spend those special moments with your family, a lesson I've just recently learned. I've realized that there are special moments in your life that you sometimes overlook until you realize that person isn't going to be around to share them with you or family anymore.

For my dad, looking down, I love you and miss you....