I Am a Daughter - Remembering Archie

Archie - circa 1970

Archie Rinaldi...everyone's friend, full of energy, mischievous, handsome, dancer, Boy Scout Leader, gardener, reader, daredevil, lover of sports, community volunteer...my father.  Born of Italian immigrant parents, Archie (Ezio) grew up in Kent, Ohio.  Today he would probably be called hyper-active, but in the 1920's he was just "cattivo" (naughty). A high school drop-out, he returned to Roosevelt High School to complete his diploma after meeting my mother, sitting in a classroom sporting his pencil-thin mustache, with much younger students...setting an example of the value of an education.  His life is peppered with stories of his antics, his activities, his friends and his generous deeds.

Archie circa 1938

Today would have been my dad's 95th birthday.  But this man, so fully alive, was cut down in his prime by that insidious condition, early-onset Alzheimer's.  He was 67 years old when he died, but we lost the man he was 8 years earlier when his spirit, memory, and ability to interact with the world was erased by this disease.

Patricia & Archie - circa 1974

Yet it is through my dad that I have come to believe that a person's spirit lives on in the memories we carry.  I can never hear big band swing music or an Italian polka without remembering the feel of his arms as he taught me to dance, his blue eyes dancing as well as his feet.  I can never put a piece of popcorn in my mouth without remembering my dad reaching into his popcorn bowl with one hand, holding a paperback western novel in the other while sitting in his recliner watching a baseball game on television.   I can never pick a tomato from the vine without remembering my dad picking a sun-warmed tomato, washing it off with the garden hose and holding it out to me to take a taste.

I can never pass a Red Cross emblem without remembering my dad setting up the Blood Mobiles at the church and getting his picture in the paper for donating his 100th pint of blood.  I can never taste honey without remembering my dad bringing home, again, a "new friend," a newly-arrived Hungarian refugee who was trying to make friends for his family and who often gifted us with the raw honey from his beehive.  These are just a few of the times when I am filled with my father's spirit and each memory is bittersweet because it comes with the tremendous sense of loss and longing to see him just one more time.

They don't know what causes Alzheimer's and they don't know how to cure it.  We do not think my Dad's condition was genetic.  We think it was a childhood accident that pre-disposed him to develop Alzheimer's.  When he was a young boy...imp that he was...he climbed a high-tension pole, was electrocuted, fell many feet to the ground, sustained a head injury and severe burn, was bed-ridden for months and lived to tell about it.  Last week I heard Maria Shriver talk about her involvement in the Alzhiemer's Project and her new report, just released.  Since her father's diagnosis in 2003 she has been deeply involved in raising awareness and funding for Alzheimer's care and research.  I applaud her efforts.

             Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
              ~From a headstone in Ireland
                                                              Happy Birthday, Dad!