Peter R. Scelfo

to give you insight to his love of God and our FAITH journey.

When grandma died, Shelly was 9. She got up and addressed the crowed room at the funeral

home and said proudly, “No one loved Jesus more than GG”. I’m here to tell you that the apple

dosen’t fall far from the tree!

We have a very personal experience with today’s first reading, read appropriately by Nicki and

also with the 2nd reading from Corinthians but I’ll get back to those.

We survived damn near everything!

WE HAVE COME OUT ON THE FAVORABLE SIDE OF ALL UPSETS BECAUSE OF DADDY’S

STRENGTH AND FAITH

Daddy didn’t do anything in life without thoughtful contemplation and prayer this did NOT

change during his hospitalization. Every conversation with GOD started with thanking HIM for

all the GOOD he has done and all the blessings followed by our petitions and ending with

gratitude for all those entrusted with daddy’s care.

Somewhere around Easter, I had an early morning conversation with Joe Brandine, a lifelong

friend of daddy’s. Actually, mostly me crying and Joe listening than Joe said this to me, “Your

father has internal fortitude; he is a lion.”

I asked Siri, define fortitude. She said, it is a NOUN, means courage and pain or adversity.

I thought and in parenthesis it should say, only comes from GOD.

WELL

That image daddy as a lion, it clicked. I had a visual and a reference. It took off like wild fire!

It made PERFECT sense!

I wish I had a big screen to show and share all the Lion images with bible verses and analogies

that were shared among family and friends in texts! Looking around church I know I have sent

and received, shared and enjoyed them with many of you! Aunt Bonnie found the first images

of the Lion as warrior on the cross, “The devil whisper you cannot withstand the storm and the

warrior roars, I AM the storm”.

And from there, Daddy was the Lion. Every update ended with the emoji’s of lion, muscle, heart

and praying hands. STRONG IN LOVE and PRAYER

When he did physical therapy, he was the Lion on the prowl and when he slept through the

night, I sent a text, The LION sleeps tonight! With emoji's of the lion head, music note and ZZZ’s.

Aunt Edie shared the lyrics with me, a few bars of weema-woe a weema woe, the lion sleeps

tonight, hush my darling do not fear, the lion sleeps tonight!

Uncle Lou’s choir sang it!

And my friend Mary who plays piano for the school musical, and yep, the play this year was Lion

King, they dedicated the performance to Mrs. Romond’s friends, dad.

We were lifted in prayer by so many! At night when daddy was anxious and before night time

formal prayers, I showed him all the texts from the day, all the love and well wishes and we

read the word of God together. Did he really not know how loved and admired he was?

Also around this time, Lin told us when she meet the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, he

said that we should not be afraid to ask for a BHAG, big hairy ass goal. OUR BHAG was

LIVE RESTORED!

Daddy never said the words but he lived it.

FAITH

OVER

FEAR

Consistent through his up bring and catholic schooling, (parochial grade school, St. John’s and

Georgetown), this what he knew; THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD, & GOD’S promises are

true!!

This what we learned from him and witnessed.

Jacki recapped Joel Olsteen one day early in our journey, and I’ll give it to you in 2 sentences.

God’s power is released through our Faith. And Our praise sets Gods miracles into action.

And we became disciples and shared with everyone who would listen. We prayed boldly and

with confidence in front of doctors and nurses, family and friends. We wanted ALL to know

what an AWESOME GOD we have!!

And here is the KEY.

TO NOT LOSE HOPE when things are not going well. For when we continue to thank GOD even

when we don’t understand it, this action by us releases God’s favor and God’s touches us in

beautiful ways!!

AMEN!!

Daddy understood this.

He told more than one doctor to “please exit and check your negativity at the door”

THIS IS HOW WE GOT AS FAR AS WE DID despite medical reports.

GOD is GOOD! Doctors treat but GOD can heal!

Daddy had much to give even from his hospital bed in ICU.

The pulmonologist came in with his team of residents, NYU is a big teaching hospital, he asked

daddy to explain this concept to his students.

Daddy eloquently shared from a patient’s perspective the need for good bedside manners.

Human touch, kindness, eye contact, and positivity. Daddy used a famous quote from Henry

Thoreau to illustrate his point, “they may forget what you said, but never forget how you made

them feel”. My daddy saw this in Dr. Mike Shen, and daddy gave Dr. Mike kudos personally and

went one step further to tell the attending what a gem he saw in this medical resident. This is

what prompted daddy’s life lesson to the team of residents!

I was soooo PROUD!!

Which brings me full circle back to the readings from today.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

There is an appointed for everything…

A time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance

WE were 95 days in the hospital, we smiled, we laughed, we cried, we gave praise, we sang and

YES daddy danced in ICU! Thanks Nicki for the tunes! Arms up in the air, pointed fingers and

toes wiggling to Solomon Burkes Cry for me.

And of course there were no coincidences, JUST GRACE!

The Corinthians verse we used for the 2nd reading was sent to me by my friend Tim the day my

dad passed and I thought at the moment, this is perfect.

For we live by FAITH and not by sight. We are confident, I say and would prefer to be away from

the body and at home with the Lord.

Daddy has been fully healed, now and forever and will live in the Glorious presence of GOD!

I say with confidence that our BHAG, big hairy ass goal

LIVE RESTORED

has been answered, God’s way!

We mourn today but we know from daddy that God’s promises are true and I leave you with

Psalm 30:11

“You turned my wailing into dancing, you removed my sack cloth and clothed me joy that my

heart my sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever

* * * * * * * * * *

When I began thinking about what I wanted to say about my daddy, adjectives flooded my brain along with stories that exemplify the man he was.

If you knew daddy at all, you knew he was kind. He would greet you with a warm smile and would genuinely be happy to see you and chat for a few minutes. “So, what’s good?” he’d say. Kindness is a constant in so many memories.

He was an intelligent man and could speak with you on a great number of topics. Years of doing crossword puzzles kept his mind sharp and his vocabulary broad. He believed that the Latin he was forced to take in college gave him knowledge of the English language that he drew from all the time.

Loving-yes. He loved mom very much. 52 years they were married on the day Jesus called him home. “Lea,” he’d say, “You make my heart soar like an eagle.”

And corny. Oh, so corny! He certainly had the gift of cheesy witticism. There was no shortage of dad jokes. (Daddy, did you get a haircut? Nope. I got them all cut.) His humor made some roll their eyes but he made me laugh out loud.

He loved me and my two sisters and two brothers. We have been shaped by his influence in countless ways. He just wanted us to be happy. Our happiness brought him happiness. Our struggles truly saddened him. And the same can be said for his 17 grandchildren, each of whom he had nicknames for. There’s Mako and Sharky, Zsa Zsa, Cookie, Tiger, Ohno, and Squeaker to name a few. He tried to instill in them, as he did with us, that it’s important to work hard in life and treat people well- a life lesson taught by example. We quickly learned the number one Italian rule- Respect.

Honesty was a biggie too. When daddy was a small boy in Brooklyn, he once stole a coconut. He got caught and he never stole again and he never ate coconut again.

My daddy was without a doubt a family man. He loved to be surrounded by family and friends. Saturday lunches (outside of the fishing season) brought him great pleasure.

The office closed at 3 on Saturdays and he’d stop to pick up the cold cut spread on his way home. Italian cold cuts. American cold cuts. 6 or more loaves of Italian bread. Seeded rye for mom. Olives stuffed with garlic or provolone. Pickles, the sour kind. Fresh mozzarella ball still warm because they just made it. And wine. He loved a nice port or Amarone. “Jacqueline, get yourself a glass. Did you taste the capicola? Look how lean and rare the roast before is,” he’d say. He just loved to share the meal with different guests. If you’ve broken bread with us at Saturday lunch then you have seen the joy it brought him. It wasn’t so much about the food as it was about who he shared it with. He was proud to show off his children and grandchildren and proud to welcome people into his home. The home, as he put it, “he worked his whole life to create.”

Work. His work. You can hardly call it work when you do something you love, and daddy loved his dental practice. He said dentistry is exciting, not the routine fillings or root canals but the technology. The evolving technology amazed and intrigued him. He treated his patients like family. Just look at how many patients came to honor daddy. That same moral compass that guided his personal life was present in his professional life as well. The longevity of his staff and the four-generation families he had as patients are a testament to that.

Something else he loved? Family, yes. Work, yes. And the Open Wide. As with most boats, the Open Wide was a source of tremendous joy for daddy as well as agonizing frustration. It was a piece of who he was. Captain. Deep sea fisherman. The Open Wide is synonymous with summer in the Scelfo household. Boaters, fisherman, beachgoers are who WE are. It’s in our BLOOD because of daddy.

You know daddy was a dentist and a fisherman. Some of you may know him as a hunter. Some may remember him as a bowler. You may know his DVR playlist contains every James Bond movie.

You may know he’s a Star Wars fan and an X Files fan and a Harry Potter fan and that he would stop to watch Jaws anytime it aired on tv. Maybe you’ve sat at the kitchen table with him and had the satisfaction of placing a piece in the current 1000-piece puzzle he’d been working on.

To me and my siblings he’s daddy.

To mom he’s Petie or Hon, depending on the day.

To his grandchildren he’s Grandpa Doc.

To you he may be Uncle Pete or Pete, Dr. Scelfo or just Doc.

But to ALL he will be missed.

I will end by saying what he so often said to me to send me in my way,

May the force be with you, Daddy.