This Thanksgiving: Grateful For and Missing My Father

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Daddy died last week.

First Thanksgiving without him.

We appreciate your prayers.

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Below is the obituary my husband, Maurice Possley, wrote for Daddy’s hometown newspaper, the Milford (NH) Cabinet.

With a quick wit and a firm hand, Mario Dante “Muzzy” Falsani shaped the lives of thousands of young men and women during more than a half-century as a mathematics and science teacher in Connecticut and abroad.

Mr. Falsani, of Shelton, Connecticut, died on Wednesday, November 14, at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, Connecticut, after a long illness. He was 82.

Mr. Falsani spent nearly all his life teaching mathematics and science in the classroom as well as lessons in life, love and politics wherever and whenever family and friends gathered for fellowship, reunions and holidays.

For Mr. Falsani, politics was a professional sport and he was an active participant. With dry wit and an affable manner, Mr. Falsani was charmingly persuasive and remained firm in his convictions. He was a consummate film buff and a lover of history. In the kitchen, Mr. Falsani ruled—turning Italian fare that not only stuck to the ribs, but warmed the soul.

His passion was molding the minds of students and his generosity with his time was extraordinary. Mr. Falsani spent most of his career at Central Junior High School and Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he retired in 1992. He was not retired long, however, and went on to teach for several more years at St. Gabriel Middle School in Stamford, Connecticut, and at Gateway Community College in New Haven, Connecticut.

“My father was my hero, a gentleman in every sense,” his daughter, Cathleen, said. “I’ve never known another person with a truer sense of wonder and curiosity, quicker wit, or more genuine sense of humility about his knowledge and accomplishments—both of which were vast.

“He taught me to see the world as an adventure and to choose the one-of-kind experience or chance of a lifetime over the obligatory or quotidian any time,” she said. “He was funny and so deeply, naturally kind-hearted. He was a believer and taught me to believe, but never tried to make faith as complicated as everyone else tries to make it. For that alone I could never be adequately grateful. He taught me how to see, how to listen, how to taste, how not to take myself (or anyone else, for that matter) too seriously. He taught me to love learning. To love the world and enjoy our time here on it.”

Born August 15, 1930 in Milford, New Hampshire, the son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Falsani was a graduate of Keene State College, in Keene, New Hampshire. He held several graduate degrees from Fairfield University in Connecticut and Columbia University in New York City, where he also did his doctoral work in education.

Mr. Falsani served in the U.S. Navy as a gun director from 1952 to 1955 and then became a civilian teacher in the U.S. Force. While teaching the students of American military in Germany, Mr. Falsani met and courted Helen Page, a fellow educator from Stamford, Connecticut. They married in Stamford in 1963 and raised a daughter, Cathleen, who would become a journalist, and a son, Mark, who would become a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot.

Mr. Falsani was a man of faith, serving as a trustee of Word of God Christian Church in Fairfield, Connecticut.

In addition to his wife, Helen, Mr. Falsani is survived by his son, Maj. Mark D. Falsani (USAF) of Boise, Idaho; his daughter, Cathleen Falsani Possley; her husband, Maurice Possley, and his grandson, Vasco Fitzmaurice Mark David Possley, of Laguna Beach Calif. He leaves behind a brother, Umberto Falsani of New Hampshire, and many nieces and nephews. Mr. Falsani was preceded in death by his parents, Ceasar and Aida (Rocca) Falsani; a brother, Ceasar Falsani of Florida; and his sister, Joan Tafe of New Hampshire.

Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday at the Riverview Funeral Home, 390 River Road, Shelton. A celebration of Mr. Falsani’s life will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the First United Methodist Church of Shelton, 188 Rocky Rest Road, co-officiated by the Rev. Ian Morgan Cron and the Rev. Diane Jones. Burial will follow with full military honors at Riverside Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made to The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation (www.alzinfo.org), One Intrepid Square West 46th St. & 12th Ave., New York, NY 10036. Condolences to Mr. Falsani’s family may be posted at www.riverviewfh.com.

And here’s something I wrote about Daddy almost 10 years ago on Father’s Day for the Chicago Sun-Times (where I was a reporter at the time) almost 10 Father’s Days ago. It’s as true today as it was then – and then some.

June 15, 2003 Sunday

An open letter to shoppers at the River Forest Jewel-Osco last Tuesday night (or, “Why that woman was weeping in aisle 12”):

I must have looked like a lunatic, one hand clutching a plastic shopping basket (broccoli, frozen vegetable potstickers, low-sodium soy sauce, three-for-$10 orchids), the other cradling a pastel-colored card with the words, “Simply put, I am my father’s daughter” a few inches from my blubbering face.

Maybe it’s a character flaw, but Father’s Day greeting cards make me weepy.

Always have.

So on my annual trip to the Dad/Grandpa/Husband cards section of my local grocery store, the waterworks started before I could stop myself, or realize that people were staring.

Wave some watercolor drawing and a few kind words about fatherhood in my direction, and I’m a train wreck.

It’s just that Muzz–that’s my dad–lives so far away (in Connecticut), and I rarely see him, and I miss him terribly, and he’s such a tremendous guy, and every time I’ve seen him lately he’s been just a little bit smaller.

Not that I’m complaining. I realize that I am one of the lucky ones, blessed to have had a father in the first place, to still have him around, and to like him a great deal. Father’s Day is not a happy occasion for far too many people.

My father is my hero, a gentleman in every sense. And I am his princess. I know this not because he calls me “princess”–more often than not he just calls me “Smedley”–but because he treats me like one.

Still. Even though I’m 32 and married.

So picking through the Father’s Day cards, I got a little teary thinking about all the things I’m thankful for about my sweet, generous, hilarious father.

For the million homemade birthday cakes he’s crafted in the shape of, variously, bumble bees, Holly Hobby dolls, musical notes, Star Wars spacecraft, baseballs and airplanes.

For the sincere belief that any situation can be improved with ample amounts of marinara sauce or duct tape, and an almost supernatural ability to keep a Honda station wagon rolling for more than 200,000 miles.

For special talents, such as moving his eyebrows, independently, in different directions at the same time, and a dead-on imitation of Marty Feldman a la “Young Frankenstein.”

For pretending to be old and deaf just to annoy me.

For refusing to change the outgoing message on his answering machine–“No one’s here but my two cats, and they don’t like to answer the phone”–even though his cat, Tim, died more than a year ago, leaving only Bob, the “grand-cat” who came for a visit and stayed for a lifetime.

For not yet perfecting the art of feeding the birds without feeding the squirrels.

For always cooking. Always. At his house or anyone else’s.

For perpetually arriving early–at the airport, at the mall, at church, and especially at the sixth-grade dance where I was slow dancing to “Stairway to Heaven” when he walked in to pick me up with my 7-year-old brother in tow.

For taking me to the high school Valentine’s Day banquet when nobody else asked.

For treating politics like a contact sport, keeping a box of Cracker Jack in the hidden compartment of his Karmann Ghia, and for taking long drives for no particular reason.

For letting me pick the radio station, unless it landed on Barbra Streisand–“She screams”–and for teaching me to appreciate Gene Krupa and the Dorsey Brothers.

For always having batteries, fresh bread, and antifreeze.

For refusing to accept “I’m not hungry” as an answer.

For telling me it was Jason’s loss in eighth grade, Karl’s loss senior year, Jeremy’s loss in college, and finally for letting me know when I found one I shouldn’t lose.

For warning me (since infancy) never to trust a man with a mustache, and for being totally unfazed when I married one.

For being so brave in the hospital, not harassing the nurses, taking his medicine, and not complaining too much when sausage-and-peppers was replaced by chalky chocolate “meals in a can” for a few months.

For insisting he’s just “svelte.”

For pretending–after the better part of 40 years–that he doesn’t love teaching junior high as much as he really does.

For waiting hand-and-foot on my mother since 1963 without getting trampled.

For believing and not making faith as complicated as everyone else tries to make it.

And for tearing up over Italian arias, spirited sermons and Father’s Day cards.

So forgive me for the public display of emotion. I am my father’s daughter.