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Alfred George FortunatoSeptember 6, 1931 - October 2, 2012 |
In Loving Remembrance
of the Honorable Life of
My Brother
My Best Friend
Alfred George Fortunato
Today our family gathered for a special memorial service to honor and pay tribute to my brother of eighty-one years, Alfred G. Fortunato.
My heart is too full to do justice to the memory of this day and to the thousands of thoughts that run through my mind about a very special human being who was my brother, my playmate through our childhood years, my hero as the Captain of our Erasmus Hall High School Baseball Team and respected for his deep compassion for others as early as in his adolescent years. Al was my most trusted and respected friend throughout our adult years and into our golden years right until the very end.
I know that Al's passing is deeply felt by many whose lives he touched during his life. He had a special bond and lifetime friendship with his teammates on the Brooklyn Dayton Baseball Club. He took special pleasure in his friends in the literary world of publishing, the authors, editors, researchers and writers who gave him a special sense of fulfillment in the world of literature. Al enjoyed time with wonderful friends and neighbors he felt privileged to know.
As for his family, Al leaves his wife and business partner, Susan Rabiner, with a legacy of his heart and mind and uniquely, his even-mindedness about all things.
Al's most significant legacy is his seven children he loved with all his heart. But his greatest joy was his grandchildren who always lifted his spirit with their presence and lifted his sense of pride in their many accomplishments.
Each of them knows the love he had for them. I have known how much they loved their grandpa and today, at Al's memorial tribute, his children and his grandchildren shared their reflective thoughts about him in a manner that brilliantly illuminated his memory accurately and from many perspectives.
My brother lived to find the truth of who and what we are as humans. He was intelligent, an encyclopedia of knowledge, of history, the philosophies, literature and the arts.
He had great compassion for those whose lives were not filled with life's richness of spirit and well-being.
He never judged but rather listened to what everyone had to say, taking it all in and inquiring more deeply about those things that were outside of experience.
My loss is deep. It is not as though I have a choice in accepting his passing, but I do so because it is the natural order of things and because I have so much of him to hold onto, my lifetime of memories shared with Al, a lifetime of loving affection, the experience and exciting talks we had about life, its mysteries and its possibilities.
While I hold onto the sad times we shared and how we consoled each other in the loss of those who moved on before us, those memories are trumped by the thrill of remembering our celebrations, such as our family Christmases and other joyous times with our mom and dad, Mafalda and Jimmy, and our brother, Jimmy and our sister, Ann Marie.
While Al is and will always be sorely missed, the treasure of my memories of him will always be with me and I am blessed to have a special part of Al in his children, his nieces and nephews and their children and all who knew and cared for Al asI do. .
I know that if you could hear him today, he would tell you, first, that he loved you, and that he knows you will remember him and that you will carry the light of his life in your hearts and that you will carry your own torchlight high through your personal journey of life.
My personal prayer now is that Alfred G. Fortunato is in the warm embrace of the Lord, our God, and that he will rest in eternal peace.
I intend to share more about my brother because I believe his life is an illustrious and inspiring paradigm of the best that we can be.
Requiescat in pace.
Photo Left: At a memorial mass at the Church of Saint Dominic in Southington, Connecticut, on Friday, November 2, 2012, Ephraim Richard 'Dick' Fortunato lights a candle in memory of the enlightened life of his brother Alfred George 'Al' Fortunato, who left us Tuesday, October 2, 2012.
My heart is too full to do justice to the memory of this day and to the thousands of thoughts that run through my mind about a very special human being who was my brother, my playmate through our childhood years, my hero as the Captain of our Erasmus Hall High School Baseball Team and respected for his deep compassion for others as early as in his adolescent years. Al was my most trusted and respected friend throughout our adult years and into our golden years right until the very end.
I know that Al's passing is deeply felt by many whose lives he touched during his life. He had a special bond and lifetime friendship with his teammates on the Brooklyn Dayton Baseball Club. He took special pleasure in his friends in the literary world of publishing, the authors, editors, researchers and writers who gave him a special sense of fulfillment in the world of literature. Al enjoyed time with wonderful friends and neighbors he felt privileged to know.
As for his family, Al leaves his wife and business partner, Susan Rabiner, with a legacy of his heart and mind and uniquely, his even-mindedness about all things.
Al's most significant legacy is his seven children he loved with all his heart. But his greatest joy was his grandchildren who always lifted his spirit with their presence and lifted his sense of pride in their many accomplishments.
Each of them knows the love he had for them. I have known how much they loved their grandpa and today, at Al's memorial tribute, his children and his grandchildren shared their reflective thoughts about him in a manner that brilliantly illuminated his memory accurately and from many perspectives.
My brother lived to find the truth of who and what we are as humans. He was intelligent, an encyclopedia of knowledge, of history, the philosophies, literature and the arts.
He had great compassion for those whose lives were not filled with life's richness of spirit and well-being.
He never judged but rather listened to what everyone had to say, taking it all in and inquiring more deeply about those things that were outside of experience.
My loss is deep. It is not as though I have a choice in accepting his passing, but I do so because it is the natural order of things and because I have so much of him to hold onto, my lifetime of memories shared with Al, a lifetime of loving affection, the experience and exciting talks we had about life, its mysteries and its possibilities.
While I hold onto the sad times we shared and how we consoled each other in the loss of those who moved on before us, those memories are trumped by the thrill of remembering our celebrations, such as our family Christmases and other joyous times with our mom and dad, Mafalda and Jimmy, and our brother, Jimmy and our sister, Ann Marie.
While Al is and will always be sorely missed, the treasure of my memories of him will always be with me and I am blessed to have a special part of Al in his children, his nieces and nephews and their children and all who knew and cared for Al asI do. .
I know that if you could hear him today, he would tell you, first, that he loved you, and that he knows you will remember him and that you will carry the light of his life in your hearts and that you will carry your own torchlight high through your personal journey of life.
My personal prayer now is that Alfred G. Fortunato is in the warm embrace of the Lord, our God, and that he will rest in eternal peace.
I intend to share more about my brother because I believe his life is an illustrious and inspiring paradigm of the best that we can be.
Requiescat in pace.
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