Getting the call that you’ve lost someone you love is not easy. That morning, I heard the phone ring at 6 am, saw my brother’s name on the screen, and knew - here it was. I’d dreaded that call for years. Yet, after he told me the news, I immediately started repeating out loud everything I was grateful for - Grateful to have him walk me down the aisle at my wedding that summer, to see him holding court with all our family, to have an amazing day running around Washington DC just a month before he passed, to have made it home that last week to be with him, to have such amazing people in our lives who helped get him home that last day, to have hugged him goodbye before I left that last night, and most of all - to have such an incredible, amazing, kick ass dad in the first place. He was my parent, but more than that, he was my friend. He was 62 - I am 28 - yet, he talked to me about anything I was interested in - from politics to the front page of People Magazine to Friends and Big Bang Theory episodes. We never argued - my brothers would say it’s because I was Daddy’s Little Girl (and thus, always got my way). Damn right. The day hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, my family was mourning the passing of my father just 24 hours earlier. Yet, we couldn’t help but wake up and think about how, in his typical style, he would have been the first person hitting the road at 5 AM assessing the damage and reporting back to us. When we were kids, blackouts were never scary. He would turn them into an adventure. Every time our power went out he would gather us all together, bust out the trusty flashlights, and start a game of flashlight tag or hide and go seek in the dark. We’d crawl throughout the house, hiding from dad, thinking blackouts were the coolest thing in the world. His curiosity and adventure made us love him even more. Sure, we’d complain when he’d drive us 30 minutes out of the way to see this “awesome house/building/tree/animal/field/christmas display/field/you-name-it you just HAVE to see” that had some historical significance only my dad would know, but looking back, we loved each and every detour he brought us on along the way. Spontaneity was his thing - he woke up one morning and saw on the news a snow storm was going to hit the next day. He decided he was sick of the cold and asked my mom what she thought about taking the kids to Disney World on a few hours notice. She said yes. During the Eulogy, my dad’s best friend of 60 years, Nelson Keyser, spoke at his funeral about my father’s love for my mom. When in California earlier this year, he spent five days with me and Jeff - the longest he had been away from my mom in the 30 years they were married. By day two, he was already talking about missing his best friend. It was the team of these two as our parents that I believe to be the reason myself, Eric and Jeff turned out so well. I am not saying we are perfect - we all have our flaws and you know we had quite a few struggles as kids - but they let us be independent in a way that few parents I know would encourage. We went out into the world armed with our parent’s values - work hard, play hard, dream hard. I take pride in who we grew up to be. My dad HATED that Jeff and I lived in California. In his family, they all grew up on the same street as their cousins. It was like our Facebook generation was ruining everything an Italian American family strove to preserve. Yet, he never outright objected when I packed up my two suitcases - without a job in place - to head west, and he never asked me to move back. When I married Gabe, he stressed the importance of integrating into my newly expanded family. When Gabe’s family came to West Chester for the wedding week, my dad was so excited to meet them he spent literally months planning the best possible week-long activities we could do to entertain everyone, from his parents to the kids - the youngest of which is only 10. On the day of my bridal shower, he excitedly dragged Gabe, his dad and his brothers all over our town - he couldn't show them enough of the history of the Chester County area. It says something about a man with the many ailments my dad had that he could tire out my 28 year old athletic husband, but that was my dad... excitable, adventurous, and someone who lived for family time. In the end, it wasn’t the return of his pancreatic or lung cancer - he was still a two time survivor of the disease that takes too many lives - but it was his heart, we think, that ultimately gave out. A heart that he lent to family and friends through his kindness and compassion for 62 years. The funeral director told us my dad’s viewing was one of the biggest they'd ever hosted - hundreds of people stood for 1-2 hours in the cold in a line that wrapped the building to pay their respects and tell us a little piece of his story through their time with them. It had been a decade since he had his custom home building company, yet flooring guys, cabinet guys, and AC guys all showed up to tell us how they'd never forgotten how my dad did business with a handshake, how his word was his contract - something that is long forgotten in today's business world. We heard from cousins, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters about the many times they'd call on my dad for advice, or just to listen, and how he never judged anyone or turned them away. What I learned most from my father’s death wasn’t to enjoy life’s every moment. It was, simply, that being kind and respectful to others is the greatest gift you can offer the world.