Standing up and trying to do justice to a life like my dad's in just a couple of minutes feels all wrong. My dad was larger than life and it seemed that everyone who ever met him never forgot him.
He was known by many names:
Art... Grampy... Arthur... Greepap... Artie... Gramps... Arthur C... Art F... Grandpa
My dad loved The Onion. If you aren't familiar with The Onion, it’s a satirical publication, mimicking the style of real news with headlines & articles filled with ironic and dark humor. He would email me headlines often and he would have loved this one that I saw yesterday:
"Area Man Afraid Some Woman Might Come Out Of The Woodwork To Hold Him Accountable For Something".
In his last days, dad maintained his terrific sense of humor and he and I were actually writing Onion headlines together.
For example…he was screwing around with his oxygen mask….making fart noises & funny faces, so we came up with:
"Area Man Goes Viral On You Tube Playing 'Stairway To Heaven' On Oxygen Mask”
And this one is dark, but he loved it:
"Area Man Gets Last Laugh After Dying In Front Of Family Who Tried To Convince Him He Was Not Dying”
In true Art Fruncillo style, he joked around, hoping to make a terrible situation a little easier for us all.
The other day, someone asked me “What did your dad do for a career?” Well. That was always a tough one to answer. But as I’ve reflected upon his life these past days, I’ve realized that he achieved something that so many people do not. He lived life so fully. He ate it up until he was stuffed. And he still came back for dessert.
My dad once attempted to shovel our 1/4 mile long driveway in the woods of Grantsburg, Wisconsin after a huge snow storm (I can’t recall how far he actually got).
My dad was always up for a road trip, and he went on many with all of us, to destinations all over the United States and beyond.
When I got my first period, my dad sent me a dozen roses and a card that read, “Girl, you’re a woman now”. I was mortified. But that was my dad.
Art would hate this early winter we’re having and by now would probably have said, “That’s it, I’m leaving for Florida and I’m not coming back until spring” He often did leave for Florida, but he never stayed as long as he planned, because he inevitably missed his family and came back.
When it came to driving, Art took things very seriously. He believed everyone should be able to drive a manual transmission and when I had nothing but a learner’s permit, he marched me right out to practice one winter night when they warned to stay in due to black ice.
My dad could be the least technically trained musician in the room, but he’d be the one who had everyone on their feet singing and smiling.
He pushed us all beyond our comfort zone and took us on great adventures that will never be forgotten.
When Art became a grandpa, he embraced it with a giant love.
He would patiently let his grandkids climb all over him or squirt him with a hose and he would tickle them and wrestle with them endlessly.
He played music for them and with them.
He showed up at their events to support them.
He exposed the grandkids to reality, even when their parents weren’t ready. The first time my kids ever heard the “F word” was in Italy, when grandpa told an overly aggressive flower peddler to “Get the fuck away” from me.
He could be aggravating. But he loved deeply and passionately. He was a beautiful man.
There’s a story my dad told often called the "Tree of Sorrows".
It is the story of a village where once a year all the inhabitants write down their sorrows, their problems and difficulties from the last twelve months. They then pin their list on a special tree, the tree of sorrows, for a day where all the villagers can read them. At the end of the day each person has a choice to take home their experience of the past year or choose the experience of another villager. As the story goes, they all choose to take back their own experience as that ultimately seems easier to bear than any of the others they have read.
I don’t want this sorrow. But this empty space in my life, in all of our lives, is a result of having had Art in it. And for that, I will forever be grateful.
