A Thank You

This is something my Mom wrote to thank all of you for the heartfelt consideration you gave to Poppo.

It was quite a week and I want to take this time to thank everyone for there prayers, cards , flowers, food and friendship. My father was a great man and anyone who attended his wake or funeral could not help but be aware of that. There he was lying there in full Firemen dress Blues, adorned with all his medals of valor. The funeral home was always packed with people who knew and loved him. His passing was sad but, at 90 it was inevitable he had a great life, it was just unfortunate that he had to suffer so badly the last six weeks of his life.He was always giving and helping others. His funeral was a funeral fit for a King. His Coffin was carried to it's final resting place inside the Port Monmouth First Aide Ambulance which he was a member of for 55 years and served as Captain as well as President. His flowers were carried by the Port Monmouth Fire Trucks which he had been a member of for 56 years and served as Captain and President as well. His funeral procession was long, one could not see the end of the cars lined up,. if you were caught at a light as the funeral procession drove by, you would have thought wow, this person was very important and he was. First we drove past the Middletown Elks club of which he was a member for more then 25 years, from there the procession drove past his house in Port Monmouth where me and my five sisters grew up. Everyone knew our house as it was the only house on the block with a red fire hydrant in the middle of lawn and of course his beautifully painted birdhouses and wood butterfly's and flowers that he painted himself .If you came to my Dads house for a visit you could not leave without him giving you one of his famous birdhouses.Next we drove up to the Port Monmouth Fire House, as the ambulance carrying his body reached the fire house you could here the whistles blow for him, talk about a lump in the throat. Then as the car that I drove in got closer I could see in the front of the fire house, there on the driveway in front of the fire trucks was a chair holding my fathers fire coat and hat and in front of the chair was his fire boots and next to them were two firemen in full dress uniform saluting my Dad as his coffin drove by. As you can imagine that was a total breakdown, for I could no longer hold back the tears. Now we travel further down the road and we approach the Port Monmouth First Aide where once again the whistles blow for my Dad and again as we get closer I can see in front of the first aide a chair bearing my fathers first aide coat and hat and his boots in front of chair .I have still not yet stopped crying from seeing this at the firehouse, so my tears are now running down even more.But how proud I am at this time, of my father and what a great send off he had. He always said he loved a parade and this time he was Grand Marshall of his own parade.
Thank You one and all for all your thoughts and prayers of this wonderful, giving, thoughtful,fun, husband ,father, Grandfather, Great-grandfather, friend and neighbor, he will be missed by all but never forgotten.
Thank You
Denise (Thompson ) Arcara