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So long, take care, be careful, take it easy, love you, talk to you later, bye …

My dad did many things well, saying goodbye was not one of them. Whether it was after chatting with my cousin, Ray, or at the end of dad’s frequent check-ins with his grandson, Danny, or having finished gathering the latest gossip from Bayonne from Marie and Jim … or when done with his daily call with my brother, Don, Dad prattled on with a seemingly endless litany of endings.

Alfred Stanley Casale, my dad, was born on Oct. 1, 1930, in the room in 203 Washington Street, Jersey City, New Jersey, that was to be his home for the following 24 years. As a kid he loved to play baseball, Eddie Gal was his best friend, he was an indifferent student, he had a dog named Scottie and, as most of his friends did too, he started smoking cigarettes young.

Lightning struck my dad for the first time when his father, Pasquale, died of a heart attack when Dad was 12. His mom Emily’s family wrapped their arms around her and her young son, perhaps too tightly, and Al grew into a quiet, kind young man.

Dad’s cousin Madeline was dating a guy from Bayonne, Eddie Cembor and her parents wouldn’t let her go to a picnic run by the Sons of Poland without a chaperone, so Al was dragged along. Lightning struck again.

Eddie’s young sister, Regina, was beautiful, sweet and over-dressed offered Dad a cream soda; she captured his heart and they never looked back. Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Mickey and Minnie … Al and Regina.

Courtship interrupted by Korea, led to a wedding at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Bayonne on Oct. 16, 1954. The two of them set to work building the American dream. Hard work, prudence, an abundance of faith and love, two sons, three grandchildren and three weeks ago Rowan, a great granddaughter. Oh, and friends too numerous to count.

He quit smoking around 1966 when a cigarette butt he discarded blew back through the window of his Buick and burned a hole in his new suit’s pants. He threw the whole pack of Tareyton’s out the car window and to my knowledge never smoked again but everyone around him at work, or family gathering (never Mom!) did. Second hand smoke was all over.

When lighting struck again three and a half years ago and Regina died, Dad moved to Dallas to be closer to us. Don and I were worried about how he’d adapt to a new place and survive without Mom. No worries though, our friends and Dad’s new ones helped him sail through a coronary bypass operation in 2013 and made him feel OK in his new home.

He kept the house in Dallas that Mom picked, decorated and furnished just as she wanted it as a tribute to her; he never let us move a stick of furniture from her chosen spot. He read the paper from cover to cover every day. He knew who was selling a used snow-blower, where the roads were being repaired and most of all, where the best sausage, ravioli and kielbasa was being made He’d explore the region to find it.

A painful leg started to annoy him in spring. It turned out to be his hip, a fracture from a metastatic lesion from lung cancer.

The cancer spread to both lungs, his abdomen and bones when we found it, and it was not to be cured.

Because of the great care of our region’s medical community he was able to stay mobile, felt surprisingly well, had little pain and felt very little distress. In typical fashion he made me dot the I’s and cross the T’s of his affairs in preparation for the inevitable.

When he started to slip in the last few weeks, he made it clear that he was glad he’d be with his beloved Regina soon and that he felt grateful for the life and love he had.

He finally learned how to say goodbye.

Dad died peacefully on Oct. 20 at 12:20 p.m. in hospice.

Please throw your cigarettes away today.

Alfred Casale To Your Health
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_casale2.jpg.optimal.jpgAlfred Casale To Your Health

By Alfred Casale

To Your Health

Dr. Alfred Casale is chairman of surgery for the Geisinger Heart Institute, co-director of the Cardiovascular Service Line for the Geisinger Health System and Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. Readers may write to him via [email protected].