Remembering Americo (Papa) - December 14, 2010
Good morning. My name is Rick Picariello and I am privileged to be the grandson of Americo Picariello and to speak on behalf of the family and more specifically on behalf of the grandchildren.
In the last few days as I have been talking with people and remembering Papa I have found myself talking a lot about numbers. It’s amazing that after someone has lived such a full and impactful life how much comes down to numbers.
96 – was of course the number of years that Papa lived
70 – The number of years that he and Mum have been married, twice as long as I have been alive.
4 – Sons: Salvatore, William, James, and George
9 – Grandkids: Carla, Lisa, Nicole, Gina, myself, Sandra, Lauren, Gino, Donna,
9 – Great Grandchildren: Kevin & Maeve, Isaac, Caleb, Josiah, Justin, Adam, Isabella, and Hannah
28 – degrees outside the morning that Papa passed away. If you didn’t know Papa well that might mean nothing to you. But, anyone who has spent time on the phone with him the last few years knows that a conversation was not complete without the Arlington weather forecast, in fact it got such that an indoor/outdoor thermometer was standard equipment for a conversation with him. If you called late enough in the evening you also go to hear that weather from Littleton, Hudson, or Billerica, depending how many people he talked to before you called.
11.2 – The number of miles it is from the house on Battery Street in Boston where papa was born to 6 Virginia in Arlington where he died. Most of those 96 plus years were lived within that 11.2 miles, but life isn’t about the distance we travel as much as the people we impact.
40 – Number of years Papa served as a doctor before retiring in 1986. As a grandchild there were a lot of advantages to having your grandfather as your doctor and for many of us we never went to a pediatric doctor, papa was the only doctor we knew. I remember at one point saying to my mom that I wanted to go to a real doctor. With papa as your doctor you could get your ears checked before having dinner, get a prescription written at a birthday party, and get to drink orange soda with Aunt Mary before your appointment. Or you can, from what I learned from Gina lately, get to his office early enough to memorize the eye chart before he came in the door. There were also drawbacks, the only one I can think of is wondering every time you saw your grandfather if he was going to give you a shot.
4 – The number of weeks they would rent a house on the cape for every summer of my childhood that I can remember. Now that I am working I can appreciate how difficult it must have been for him to carve out four weeks every year and take a break from all his patients that needed him and find coverage, but he always did and I never once heard him talk about his medical practice while he was on vacation, I could learn from that. We had a lot of good memories on the cape. For me the best ones with papa were after we had come back from a day at the beach, the fish had been cleaned, the rods had been washed down, and all the kids had showers in the outside shower behind the house, while we were waiting for the pasta to boil. Papa would sit me down on the deck and he would bring out his big tackle box with all its shelves and shiny contents and tell me to get mine and then he would proceed to pull a few things out and put them in my tackle box. In that moment it was just hooks, and weights, and lures, but now I realize that over the course of his life he gave so much more to me than that. In those moments he gave me his time, his generosity, his love, he didn’t do it in a lot of words, but that’s what he was doing. Those were great moments as papa would look for crabs by the little beach and teach us all to swim on Washburn island.
3 – The number of world championships the Red Sox won over the course of his lifetime. Papa was the best manager the Red Sox never had and if they had listened to him they may have won three more – no disrespect to your Yankees Aunt Julia. He could never quite figure out why these guys who got paid so much money couldn’t pitch into the eighth inning. It wasn’t about the Red Sox though, it was about consistency, it was about knowing on a summer night at 10:00 where papa was, what he was doing, and having something to talk about when you called. I remember calling a couple times when they did an especially stupid thing and dialing Arlington, just to say, can you believe what they did, especially when Jimmy Williams left Pedro in in 2003.
But, the truth is a person’s life is so much more than numbers.
My grandfather was a humble, gentle, kind, faithful, and generous man.
Humble – He never told anyone that he was a doctor or that he received the bronze star in WWII, or about anything he did in life. He never liked talking about himself, but would once in a while indulge us when we coaxed it out of him. He didn’t try to draw attention to himself, he would rather do it himself, even shoveling his driveway when he was near 90 rather than have anyone make a fuss and bother about him. In fact even all this he would feel uncomfortable with.
Proud – I found out yesterday that when he would be at the church for a wedding he would take people into my office and show them the cabinet in my office that used to hold medical instruments in his office. He was proud when any of us graduated from anything, when his granddaughter Carla became the next Dr. Picariello, and when his grandson Gino beat cancer.
Gentle – The only time I ever heard my grandfather raise his voice was when he was saying, “Jean get the coffee.” Others may have had a different experience, but I never heard him yell, get into a fight, or start a confrontation with anyone.
Generous – He would send birthday cards and be just a little more excited when they arrived on the day of your birthday. He wouldn’t show it much, but I think he really loved playing Santa and handing out a card with a check in it to every person present on Christmas Eve, and if someone was there he didn’t expect he would come up with a few bucks on the spot to give them. He repaired the deck at the cape house, a house he was renting, because it was the right thing to do.
Kind – Here is another number for you “0”, that is the number of unkind words I ever heard my grandfather say about any of you. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone in my life, and I am not exaggerating. He accepted us even when we made decisions he didn’t agree with, even when we did things that he wouldn’t have done, he accepted us and loved us as his family. He always greeted me with the “How you doin man” or “What do ya say man” whenever I saw him.
Faithful – He was married to one woman for 70 years, enough said.
Papa died like he lived, in his own house, in his own bed with family around. No fuss, no bother, and all the while telling us that he is not in pain.
So Papa it’s pretty cold outside today, say we might get some snow by the end of the week. The sox look good, the Crawford pick up should really help them, I know I can’t believe they are paying him that kind of money either. Yeah you’re right Tito will probably find a way to mess it up, but what are you gonna do? Yeah the kids and everyone is doing fine. We are going to miss you. Thank for everything , bye Papa.
