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G
George Nau & Carla posted a condolence
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Angela, Telly & family, We are so sorry to hear of your loved ones passing. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. God Bless, Carla & George
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Georgia Argyros posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Georgia Argyros purchased flowers (Medium Dish Garden)
With deepest sympathy Alex, Georgia, Tassos & Markos Argyros
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Hristos Manesis posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Hristos Manesis purchased flowers (Sentiments of Serenity Spray)
To our beloved Brother Love, the Family of Agathelo Argyrou
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Hristos Manesis posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Hristos Manesis purchased flowers (Gentle Thoughts Spray)
To our beloved uncle Love, Spiros Manesis and Family
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Hristos Manesis posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Hristos Manesis purchased flowers (Gentle Thoughts Spray)
To our beloved uncle Love, Xristos Manesis and family.
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Hristos Manesis posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Hristos Manesis purchased flowers (Sentiments of Serenity Spray)
To my beloved Brother, Love, Telemachus Manesis
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Hristos Manesis posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Hristos Manesis purchased flowers (Deep in Our Hearts Spray)
To our beloved Brother John and Joanna Manesis
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MARIA ARONIS posted a condolence
Monday, July 6, 2015
MARIA ARONIS purchased flowers (Truly Beloved Bouquet)
Our Deepest Condolences to all of you. May his memory be eternal and may you all find comfort in your memories. Love Alex & Maria Aronis and Christine Kentros
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PAN GREGORIAN ENT. OF UPPER NY INC posted a condolence
Monday, July 6, 2015
PAN GREGORIAN ENT. OF UPPER NY INC purchased flowers (Peaceful White Lilies Basket)
With Caring Thoughts of Sympathy, The Board of Directors & Staff of Pan Gregorian Enterprises Of Upper NY
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Laura Kiesbye posted a condolence
Monday, July 6, 2015
Angela and Family: My thoughts and prayers are with you during this very difficult time. If there is anything I can do, please don't hesitate to ask. God Bless you all.
J
Joannos P. Giannos posted a condolence
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Joannos P. Giannos purchased flowers (Sentiments of Serenity Spray)
To our beloved father and grandfather we love you and we will miss you. Keep your smile in heaven so you can make everyone happy there too. Love always, Joanna, Spyridoula, and Marita
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Angeliki Kassimis posted a condolence
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Angeliki Kassimis purchased flowers (Serenity Wreath)
Rest in piece my love. From your loving Wife Spiridoula
A
Angeliki Kassimis posted a condolence
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Angeliki Kassimis purchased flowers (Sentiments of Serenity Spray)
We will always remember your love for us and bright smile. Love, Your Son, Daughter, and Grandsons Telly, Angeliki, George, Panagiotis
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George Aristotelis Kassimis posted a condolence
Sunday, July 5, 2015
If I were to speak what I believe, we over sentimentalize death far too much. I don't want,
though, to ignore the feelings that I have now, as the person that has probably meant the
most to me (sorry other family members) has died.
I have been lucky. I have gone a long time, became a grown…ish man pushing 30, spent 5
semesters teaching 19 year-olds about how brave Socrates was faced with a death sentence,
without grappling with death in this profoundly personal way. This is uncharted territory for
me, and I feel weaker than Socrates.
Everything I am probably comes from my parents, and I'm not that excited about that. (I kid,
I kid…kinda) Everything I ever wanted to be, though, came from my grandfather, whom I
affectionately called Papou Pente (the mom's side family nickname, named for the fact that
one of my ancestors herded animals, but couldn't count past five, and just repeated "pente,
pente, pente" when counting the animals, or so my grandfather told me). My grandfather
was the type of person not one person of a somewhat sound mind wouldn't love should you
have met him.
Both my mother's side and my father's side come from this tiny island in the Ionian Sea,
Othonoi. It's about 5 miles by 6, the rest of Greece to the southeast, all of Eastern Europe to
the northeast, Italy to the west, and sea and wind all around. It's not that, well, habitable. My
father tells me that electricity came in the 70′s. All my grandparents were born in the most
old-world peasantry you could imagine.
My maternal grandfather left this island to make some money to send back. He worked in
restaurants first in the nearby populated island, Corfu, and then to the Bronx after he had a
family. The age when he first left home? 12. Not a typo. The age we were worrying about
middle school, he was off on his own trying to earn his family a drachma or two in a country
fresh off of being conquered by Mussolini first, and then Hitler.
And he worked his tail off. Long hours, nearly everyday. He would pick up words of all sorts
of languages waiting on tourists in Greece. Getting to America, though, he was mainly a
dishwasher, my mother describing his hands white from bleach when he came home.
A couple of years before I was born, he had a heart episode while working. I never knew him
without a serious heart condition. After that, he worked some nights, but mainly collected
worker's insurance. Then my parents were hitched, mom at juuuust shy of 18, and my dad at
21. I was born a couple of years later, and we all lived with my maternal grandparents on
Mace Ave in the Bronx. That house isn't there anymore, actually. A new set of homes were
put up there.
My mom continued with college, my dad started working full time as a painter in Rockefeller
Center, my grandmother was working, as well, in one of the last factories still left in NYC, a
Faberware factory in the Bronx. (To this day, my grandmother knows more Spanish than
English.) That left me as the cute baby you see up there and my Papou Pente in the house
every day.
Through all the hard work he did, what made him who he was, was a man who could never
be eclipsed in the love and laughter he gave. That's not propping up the dead that everyone
says whenever anyone dies. That's who he WAS. Imagine a short man with bright eyes
behind big glasses, who's shoes were a kids size, with a smile and a laugh that would make
Louie Armstrong seem like a gloomiest of people, and a profound care for others, especially
his family, that would make Mr. Rogers seem like a heartless tyrant.
Now imagine that sight. That guy babysitting his grandson everyday, a baby who was
chubby, quiet, wide-eyed, and curious. (That curiosity would later make me the mess I am
today, lol.) Imagine that, and you have the sweetest thing anyone can think of. Not even a
cynic can hate on that because…it was real. He took me on walks around the neighborhood
making jokes and singing me songs. We would do this thing where we would pinch ourselves
behind our shin and use that as an imaginary slider to stick our tongues out to each other. I
am 99% certain that my love of comedy and music was seeded in those days. You couldn't
have two better friends than that baby and his Papou.
I don't remember specifics from that time. My rents and I escaped the city just when I was
about to turn 3. But I do remember being with him those days vaguely, and I do remember
that, I hate to say it, I've never been happier.
But why should I hate saying that? That state of mind, absorbing the world that is brand new
and exciting to you while there was the most delightful human being encouraging you to
laugh along the way and turning around sadness and crying. It's the simplest, purest love.
It's a love we all yearn for, and I could not think of happier moments anyone could have.
That type of relationship is as good as life gets. It wasn't about ethics or politics or success or
comfort. And it was so simple.
By 3 yrs old, we were in Poughkeepsie. My grandparents would move back to Greece 2 years
later. I was inconsolable that Papou would be so far away. Time passed, and although
contact was infrequent and my knowledge of the Greek language faded, we still laughed and
told jokes all the way till the end. When I was 8, my mom was pregnant with my baby
brother. I strongly suggested that they name him after my grandfather, and my parents
played like they obliged. Really, it was the plan all along since Greek kids are usually named
after grandparents (I was named after my paternal grandfather).
Even though my brother doesn't know Greek and communication was very touch and go, the
love was still as strong between them as well. I remember when my bro was 5 and I was 13,
we went to Greece by ourselves. Being used to suburbia, my bro wasn't used to relatives at
that age. And he was scared because he never was around that many old people.
That is, he was scared with the exception of our grandfather. He was the one that picked us
up at the Athens airport, with a smile and a laugh. My bro held his hand and hugged him like
it was nothing. The next relative to show up, though, he hid behind our backs.
The heart condition was always there, but he always hung on for 30 years after his first
episode. Other ailments followed, and the past few years, he couldn't walk without great
difficulty, and dementia was in full force. I went to Greece to help him travel to a hospital for
a procedure, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Seeing him like that, my
angst of being in public like that with only a child's understanding of the language. and the
abhorrent lack of care in the Greek healthcare system made it bad. But he hung on. I was
beginning to think I was in the Matrix or something and none of this was real, as it made
little sense.
After that, we shipped them over here in America. He spent the last year and a half within
walking distance and the last year just next door. He spent a lot of the time making fun of
me for jumping the fence in the barely decade old house he had built on old family land in
Othonoi. He was upset on how I neglected to bring keys, but I made sure to lighten it up and
make him laugh about it. When I did that, I took the last pic, seen above, of the view. He was
really proud of that house.
What I know is this. I have never valued anything more in my life than the relationship I
have with my grandfather. He always said that he hated to see people crying, that it was
laughter he wanted to see. As saccharine as that sounds, name me something you would
want more than those feelings from that simple love. A lot of times getting there is difficult.
And a lot of times I find myself worse than sad, but angry. But I know that the goal of all my
actions is to get to that state of laughter. And everything I want to do, everything I want to
be, everything I believe, everything I examine, everything I hold convictions for, is informed
from that real simple love I had for him and he had for all of us; and the desire to reach that
again. Not only for me, but for anyone in the entire world who wants to experience that love
as a basic human right. For everything that we believe, argue and fight for, those are the
feelings and that is the experience that are ultimately the goal of the time we spend alive.
