Friday, January 24, 2014
Dear D'Amandas, After swimming this morning at Harley, I went in before school to get the Times, and I met Len Wilcox. He said to me quietly that Louis D'Amanda had died. My response was an anxious wince because just the morning before I had met and spoken with James who gave me recent news about his brother Louis. You can imagine my confusion. Len saw my discomfort and repeated his announcement in a way that set me into the truth of the situation. Once home, I found the obituary announcement and read it with rapidly growing elation that such a wonderful person had lived such a full life. More than that, however, I felt behind it the presence of the people responsible for writing about the person at the center of their family, do I dare say the patriarch, who had lived in such a way that his spirit infused itself into the voices who were writing about him. He seems to have died quietly and peacefully, and yet he remains an active spirit in all of you who have known and appreciated him. That is what is present in the obituary - not information but joyful pride and honor and love. He has graced your lives, and you have returned the compliment. No one could ask for more.
