Artie raised the bar on what it meant to be a good husband. His love & devotion to his wife Millie was the story they make movies about. Through 61 years of marriage, they were always deeply, passionately & madly in love with each other. Throughout his illness, he never cared about himself, only the health of his beloved Millie. 

We had a few phone messages asking if Artie had anything to do with Johan Santana pitching the first no-hitter in the history of his beloved NY Mets. We like to think he did, & that if there is a heaven he's "chirping like the well known babuth," & holding court telling his jokes to a whole new audience.

On my Dad's Death Certificate it reads…
Arthur Oscar Nadel. Born March 27th, 1928 Died May 31, 2012

Dad took his first breaths the year that the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences gave out their first Academy Awards.  It could be the reason why his parents gave him the middle name of Oscar.  Who knows?

The day of his death, though technically correct, to me should have been January 23rd, 2010.

On that date, my Dad's life as he knew it would change so radically.  That is the date that he broke his hip and was never able to walk again.

Prior to this, my dad had bravely come through…
• A Cancerous Cyst in the Kidney
• Aortic Aneurism
• A Pacemaker
• Years of Dialysis

Going all the way back back to his early life, he learned to grow up fast.  His father Max died in an auto accident of the first night of Rosh Hashanah 1933.  He was 5 years old.

Then his mother Ida died of the family illness, Polycystic Kidney, in 1945.  He was 17.

Nevertheless, it was not all so bad.  
A few years after, he met the love of his life my Mom Mildred.  For 61 years, they were madly in love with each other.

My father taught me so many lessons by example.  Most of them through mistakes that he made, but the one positive he taught me was loyalty and Devotion.

Tell me, what other man, who was on a rehab ward of a nursing home, would volunteer to live the rest of his life in an Alzheimer's ward so my mother who was there, wouldn't be there alone?

Over the years, they gave life to three boys and were blessed with four grandchildren.

It wasn't always easy.  My childhood memories of my Dad were he was always at work.  Over 35 years working for the United States Postal Service.  As a child, I wished he were there more.

As I grew up, I realized he was at work to try to give us things we wouldn't have had otherwise.  He busted his backside working second jobs, part time jobs,
• With my Grandfather's Beauty Supply business
• Selling Fuller Brush
• Driving A Taxi Cab

As I grew up, we became friends.  He helped me in any way he could when I was trying to break into the radio business included a 2 day trip driving around to almost every radio station in the state of CT.

The endless hours we spent watching Mets game and playing the card game Casino.  The card games were never important.  It was a backdrop to our conversations.  Telling each other what was on our minds.  We could do it easier while we were flipping these cards onto the table in a game that became so engrained in my brain, I did not even have to think about the game at all, only that I was spending time and having fun with my Dad.  That is the way I want to remember him.

On Dad's 70th birthday, my wife Sue and I collected all of his wacky sayings and presented him a book.  As he was reading them, he was crying so hard from laughter.  That is the way I always want to remember him.

There are many Artie stories and we could be here all day sharing our favorites.  One of my all time favorites took place when my Mom was having Gallbladder surgery.  Sue and I were with my father in the waiting room.  

Now my father was legendary for not having patients for anything.  In fact, one of the first jokes I remember him telling me was, “Do you know why you'll never be a doctor?”  You have no patience.  He was so bad that if when we would be in a restaurant waiting for food and someone would get their food order first, even if they were clearly there before us, he would say, “Hey, we were here first.”  

Back to the waiting room.  Sue's Mom and Dad as well as Artie himself all had the same surgery over the past few years.  Arthroscopically, the procedure took roughly 45 minutes.  We didn't know that Mom needed the direct cut method.  So we were all getting a little nervous, as 2 hours became three hours.  Finally, a gurney comes swinging out of the operation room.  The three of us run towards it and see that it was not my mother.  My father, frustrated turns to Sue and me and ays, “Hey, weren't we here first?”

Not as funny has been the last two years.  They have been hell on the entire family.  We learned the health care system from hospitals to Nursing Homes on the fly and did not like anything about them.  Just the last two months a discoloration of my father's toe ultimately lead to his death.

I read the following on a friend's Facebook page.  He has just lost his mother and I thought I would read them to you.

“What moves through us is a silence, a quiet sadness, a longing for one more day, one more word, one more touch.  We may not understand why you left this earth so soon, or why you left before we were ready to say good-bye, but little by little, we begin to remember not just that you died, but that you lived, and that your life gave us memories too beautiful to ever forget.

In closing, I just want you to know that I wouldn't have traded in my Dad for another.  I was blessed to have shared 56 years with him.

I LOVE YOU DAD.

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Louis Hirsch & Sons Funeral Directors

Arthur Nadel

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Arthur Nadel

March 27, 1928 – May 31, 2012

Louis Hirsch & Sons Funeral Directors

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