Monday, June 25, 2007 Eulogy for Mario Raymond Reda
written by Mario's children and his eldest neice: Sheri Reda
Good Morning.
My name is Maria Brissette, or “Mia,” as my close friends and family know me. (My dad named me after the Virgin Mary and Mia Farrow, Tory thinks its Mia from west side story.)
I’m the oldest of Mario’s five children—who include me, Trinity, Salvatore, Concetta, and Franco Becket.
Unlike my father, I have not the gift nor practice for public speaking. But I’ve spent the last 1 ½ years as a stay-at-home mom and I have learned to project my voice using such phrases as:
“Billy, get down from there!”
“Please put that down!”
And,
“Rocks aren’t food!”
Maybe the courage and “iron-will” it takes to discipline a toddler will help me get through this eulogy.
Here it goes:
[Mia, now take another breath and another count to three.]
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
He was an educated guy, my dad, and he must have heard that quote from Mahatma Gandhi. Or maybe he read it. Or maybe he just believed it along with Gandhi. Because that’s what he did: he set out to be what he wished to see in the world. And he pretty much pulled it off.
Our dad, Mario Raymond Reda, believed that family and family traditions were the most important things in the world.
As a kid, our dad and his brothers, Uncle Frank and Uncle Bob, helped Grandma Connie keep a bit of Italy alive. Grandma had somehow got a fig tree all the way from Calabria, Italy to Chicago, where a tree like that could never survive the winter.
It couldn’t, but it did.
Dad, Uncle Frank, and Uncle Bob dug up that fig tree every fall. They wrapped it, and buried it below the frost line to keep it alive through every winter. And each spring, the three brothers unearthed it, making Chicago into a place with fig trees.
Mario Reda wished to see a world in which people learned things and then taught and shared what they knew. So he did that, too.
As a college student on fire with the changing times, he studied sociology. At home, he explained what he had learned about human beings as social creatures, about the workings of organizations and institutions, and about ways to improve them so they would be more just for all. The more he learned, the more he shared, becoming a dedicated and beloved professor—so beloved that one of his ex-students, [smile at Lisa and say, “Hi, Lisa”] up and married him!
He wished to see his congressional district become a more liberal, more compassionate, more intelligently run district, and so he ran against arch-conservative Henry Hyde. He didn’t let the fact that Hyde was firmly entrenched stop him. He was so dedicated to the campaign it was catchy! He even managing to convince Trinity, at age thirteen, to dress up in her too-small Halloween bunny suit pass out flyers. Dad knew he would probably lose, but he also knew he would make a difference. He was convinced that his speeches, his literature, and his visionary campaign would influence the conversations held in the district and make the invisible liberal voter more visible. They did.
Dad was visionary even about duct tape, which the rest of the world discovered only after 9-11. As was the owner of an electric lawn mower, Mario could be heard mowing his lawn on Saturdays in this way: brrrrrrrrr, oh, shit! brrrrrrrrr, oh, shit! brrrrrrrrr, oh, shit! He kept running over the electrical cord. But no worries! Mario fixed the cord, again and again, until its orange and black coating resembled a tiger’s tale.
So he wasn’t a fix-it man by nature, he was an intellectual at heart. But he also loved sports. He wished to see soccer gain the prominence his father has worked for, so he became a coach as well as a fan. Dad spent countless hours watching soccer movies with Salvatore on 16 mm film. The two of them would study the games play by play and copy them for their own Maroon games.
Dad brought all his skills and talent to what he did, and coaching was not exception. Since he was great at studying, he studied actual games. And because he was professionally trained to analyze group behavior, he brought a keen analysis to his coaching. “See?” he’d say, “British play long ball but the Italians love to dribble.”
“Watch,” he’d point out, “The Brazilians are great passers. The Americans—the Americans like to run. They’re runners.” And he’d be right.
Being right wasn’t all-important, though. Because Dad valued wisdom more than information, questions more than answers, and faith rather than doubt. He put these values into practice by insisting on Catholic education—and whenever possible, on Jesuit education—for us kids. He courageously gave all three of us girls up to St. Ignatius College Prep, though it was all the way downtown, and for two long years, he got up at 5:45 with Salvatore in order to drive him to Harlem and Foster in time to catch the shuttle bus to Loyloa Academy. And—believe it or not—he was almost never late for that bus!
He was tireless when that’s what it took to do something he believed in. He was tireless about helping out in the family businesses, where he worked at least part of the time from his earliest years in the back of a little store at Huron and Rockwell—or Urine and Rockwell, as they used to say it. He continued to work to the last few years of the tavern’s existence, when it was losing money, but Grandma couldn’t bear to let it go. He did that—even while commuting to his full time teaching job at College of DuPage, where he worked for 38 years.
Because he cared. And he knew his values.
Those values weren’t always easy to live with. When Connie asked him last year, “Dad, can I date?” Dad told her the same thing he told me and Trinity at that age: “Not till you’re sixteen.” And then when we turned sixteen, it was eighteen! As if!
When Connie then asked him, “Dad, can I have a drink?” he replied, sensibly, depends on what kind, and what time of day.” Then he went on to explain which liquor is appropriate for which occasion—red wine with pasta, and to strengthen your immune system. Black and Tan for cocktails. Bud, or Miller—ehhhh—only if all you want is a buzz.
Of course, we will miss every little thing he used to say, everything he did, and everything we did with him:
His lectures, which he sent out by podcast, for posterity.
His coaching, his soccer tips. His commentary on soccer games in progress.
Stella D’Oros in the morning, some of them dunked in his coffee. (take a breath if you need to)
Being reminded to kiss him hello.
His arguments—with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, the village of River Forest-- Because at the end of the day, you always knew he cared.
Dad knew what was right—and he’d say so. Sometimes, his Calabrese passion unnerved new colleagues, who wondered what he was yelling about—but eventually they figured out that Mario’s yelling was nothing to be afraid of. It was the product of pure exuberance.
What drove that exuberance? His love for his family. His wish for everything good for his family. His commitment to keeping the family together.
My dad’s lottery dream was a Reda compound for all the family to share
* sons and daughters
* wife and brothers and sisters-in-law
* nieces and nephews
* the Ewarts, the Cimos, and the Duffys
* and everyone else we love. (At his request, Lisa’s buying a lotto ticket today!)
Even without a compound, Dad was a man with open arms. He loved having a place that people could come home to.
He was a traditionalist who was passionate about change, a groundbreaking professor who couldn’t install a light fixture, a conventional father who put his kids first, a believer in a Catholic education, a who defender the secular sphere.
He was a “wanna-be” computer-geek who loved gadgets; he owned one of the first cell phones to ever come out—it was as big a small suitcase, and he had to carry it around on his shoulder. Of course, since no one else had a cell, there were few people to call—except his brothers.
Mario knew how to appreciate people as they were and serve people where they were. He gave his nieces and nephews classic books for Christmas—but he also coached them in soccer.
Mario was a living library, too. One of our greatest losses in losing him is that we may never find the facts he had at hand, and we’ll never manage the perspectives he was so willing to share.
In an era when Dads were distant figures, Mario was involved in his children’s lives.
That’s what Mario Reda was about. I think that’s what he’s still about, now: he’s making a place for us to come home to. He’s getting everything ready for family.
(you can breathe here too) And some day, when we see him again, we will kiss him hello.
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