I Will Remember You

Soooo I have not blogged in a while so I sat down today and said to myself whatever comes to mind first blog about.
Know that I write to write, I don't write with the proper grammar, punctuation etc. It's a blog, who cares, lol.


June 8th was 4 years that my Dad had passed, May 28th would have been his 75th birthday. Both days were hard but both days were hard because I just loved him to pieces. So having even known him I will take the sadness because it reminds me how lucky I was.


4 years is not a long time , it is still a fresh wound but I chose these days to relive my Dad's memory, say out loud as many times as I could have " I love you Dad ". For those of you know that know me well, you know I talk about my Dad a lot.  Reflecting on " why " I do that, I realized it is because that is what he did.  I would have never gotten to " know " my Nono, my Noni, my Aunt Yola, my cousin Gary, my cousin Kelly, so many that went before him and before my time. He continued to celebrate their lives after they were gone. Never forgot them and more importantly never stopped loving them.  I remember he used to say " Lori honey some day I won't be here, you will go about living your life , you will think of me once in a while but dont be sad about that because I will be happy, I will be with Jesus, I will be with my Mother I haven't seen her since I was 21 years old., haven't seen my Dad since I was a little boy".  I used to get so mad at him when he would talk like that. I would walk out of the room and say Stop It Dad , Stop it !!!! As I am typing this, Sarah McLacklan's song  " I Will Remember You " came on. ( I immediately just changed my blog title ). He was wrong about one thing though, I don't think about him once in awhile, I think about him all the time!

Some of you have seen the sort of biography I wrote on him when he passed away, my way of saying " I heard every word you ever said Big Guy!!!!!!". I listened with ears open and saw with eyes open.  I listened to a man who never stopped remembering and I saw a man that loved so deeply.  He taught me a lesson throughtout my life, how important it is to tell your stories , know your history, know where you came from.  If you couldn't reflect on that how could you ever appreciate where you had gotten. 


I just love remembering him, sometimes I cry, sometimes I crack up , and sometimes I am just proud.
Proud that he bought a used pool for $100 dollars and made that pool last 20 years so his kids had a pool. I think Mar and I were literally standing in it , waiting for the water to fill it the minute he got done putting it up.  Proud that I ever knew we didn't have money, WHAT???????? we didn't? lol. He never let us know that, we were rich in love and that's all we needed. Not spoiled by any stretch but he did what he could do.  So what if I drove a 79 AMC Banana Yellow Concord to my first day of college at Penn State Lehman, it worked and it got me there for 2 years.  So what if I drove a retired undercover cop car to high school , it worked and it got me there. So what if he gave me $ 5 bucks when my friends were getting $ 20, he taught me how to live within my means and budget my money. So what if I moved into my house at 27 with him pushing me to do it with an old bed, a beat up couch and love seat , no kitchen table , and only the essentials to make my house run, he taught me how to be a homeowner at 27 years old.  He did say to me the night before " You sure you want to do this ? " . Ugh Dad you made me do this , remember?.  " Yes I know but I think I am going to miss you. "  I moved 2 houses away , lol.  Even 2 houses away he missed me. So what if I talk about him all the time, you only get one Dad, he was mine and I loved him with all my heart!


I crack up when I think of him sitting the head of the kitchen table, and he would start giggling. " Dad what you are laughing at ".  He would come off with some story he was " reliving ".  I cry and I am proud when I think of how sad he was when he was sick and I went to sit with him , I said " ok no more being sad tell me a story about yourself I don't know ". In no mood for me he said " Lori, you know all my stories already. " I said " there has to be something I don't know Dad ." So he sat there, eyes closed and thinking he said to me " Did you know that in the Air Force they wanted me to be a spy in Turkey " ?. Of course I didn't know this already , I challenged him just like he would have me and as sick as he was he pulled out something I didn't know.  " They called me up and said DeAngelo, we have an assignment for you, you have the build, the brain , and the training and we want you to do some spy work ( technical term I am sure , lol ), he was to leave in a few weeks from that and they told him no physical activity until then.  Not thinking he would get hurt, he joined a game of basketball wtih his friends , low and behold and may I add in true DeAngelo nature sure enough he fell and hurt his knee, lol.  Well that was the end of Special Agent DeAngelo.  He ended that story with " Lor, if I went who knows what would have happened, I could have been killed, I could have made a difference but I guarantee I would not have met your Mother and you wouldn't be here today." Of course under my breath I said to myself   "I'm so happy he hurt his knee ." :)


I am MOST PROUD when someone sees my last name and says " DeAngelo huh ? who was your Dad ?", MOST PROUD and with a smile because I get to say " Frank DeAngelo was my Dad!!!!." 


So in the 4 years since you left us and in the year you would been 75 years old, I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU not once in awhile but all the time. " I love you Dad!! ."