“Honor thy father, treat him with loving care, for you will truly know his value when you see his empty chair.”
Dear dad, what I would give if I could say, “Hey Pop,” in the same old way, to hear your cheerful voice, and feel the warmth of your ever-present friendly smile, to sit with you and chat awhile, like I did when I would come home to visit and see you sitting comfortably in your recliner chair.
It has been a little over two years since my dad, Frank Augustine who spent his tender years as an orphan, died. My family and I were fortunate to have him in our lives for so long. He died two weeks shy of his 101st birthday of natural causes. On Sunday, January 5, 2020, he would have been 103. At this point, it becomes less about losing him and more about who he was, what I learned from him, and what mattered to him most as his lifespan was slowly coming to an end.
Throughout his life, dad was ever curious and had many enjoyable pastimes. He loved to make wine in the backyard shed, he used unused oak wine barrels to create his urban garden and gave out gardening tips to passersby who asked. He was even written up in the local Hoboken, NJ paper as the "Urban Gardener." He loved to display and tend his Catholic shrine in the big bay window of the storage and laundry room at the ground level of the five-flat building he and my late mom Maria owned since the 1950s. As kids, my siblings and I lived with them on the middle floor. Dad held court on the concrete entry steps (“The stoop," as we call it in New Jersey). He and our mom were written up in the Jersey Journal for that as well by the Rev. Alex Santora, a local pastor who has had a column called "Faith Matters for over 20 years.
Dad worked at Maxwell House (good to the last drop) coffee plant on the Hudson overlooking the NYC skyline for 25 years. He retired in June 1975, the same time I opened my podiatric medical practice in San Jose. In 1984 he gifted me his most prized personal possession, a free-standing golden brass and glass Atmos clock (photo) often given as gifts to heads of state. It told time by a circular, perpetual motion pendulum and had been given to him by Maxwell House Coffee at retirement for his years of service. All these years later, It still sits proudly on our library shelf. Dad was the oldest living member of the Elks Lodge No. 74 and served two terms (1996-1968) as Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus at the age of 79.
He was a life long member of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), representing the legacy of a very popular job relief program established in the 1930s by FDR as part of his New Deal platform to keep kids off the streets and pay them a living wage. He served in the Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas and at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland as a cook and Chaplain’s Aide under his mentor and friend Capt. William Walsh.
Like FDR himself, dad was active in the Boy Scouts of America for over 25 years as a scout leader, that welcomed young kids from all backgrounds and creeds. This was his true calling. He gave credit to the CCC for instilling a love of the great outdoors and living in harmony with nature, a gift he passed on to his young troop members. He was also active in the Honor Guard. That recliner chair he loved so much may be empty now, but the former occupier left behind a lifetime of memories.
There is a photo of my late brother Michael who made Eagle Scout standing joyfully between our mother and father with his sash of merit badges. He called our dad the best father he could ever have, and I’m sure on some level they are together now in the heavenly realm.
