Eulogy for Fil Cardella June 3, 1948-May 20, 2024

Good afternoon. On behalf of my family, thank you so much for coming here to honor and celebrate the life of my father, Fil Cardella. We are truly honored and humbled by your presence here with us today. It may come as no surprise that my father was not perfect. I’ll try to set aside my training as a historian in this eulogy, leaving out the embarrassing examples of my dad’s imperfection, [REDACTED BY MATERNAL EDICT] and didn’t tell anyone about it or the time he nearly prevented me from being here at all by accidentally dropping a lit firecracker in his lap.

Those stories are for another place and time. Perhaps the reception downstairs. Perhaps never, if my mother has anything to say about it.

In May on the wonderful website CaringBridge I talked of my father’s life as being like the mighty Sacramento River. His life started here in this valley of Kings, and finished right here in his beloved hometown. Today, as I try to summarize his life and my memories of him, I’m going to use a different analogy, that of the Giving Tree.

You remember Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book, the Giving Tree, right? It’s about an apple tree that has a boy that it loves and it gives everything to that boy. I’m here to tell you today I’m the child in that story. So is my brother, Chris. So are all of you. For Fil’s life is one of giving and loving.

I wrote in his obituary about my father’s military service to this great country during Vietnam, you can read about that in the bulletin. Like the giving tree, my dad left part of himself in that war zone. He wrestled with demons from that time his entire life—thankfully, he never lived in Florida, where I live today, where this time of year thunderstorms are a near daily occurrence for thunder could trigger fears he tried to leave behind.

Upon leaving the service Fil returned to his beloved Sacramento and started work as a nurses assistant at Sacramento County Hospital, which you know today as The University of California Davis Medical Center on Stockton Blvd (and spreading to what seems like that entire section of the city). There he met a hot nurse in a beehive hairdo, who would become his queen, his wife, Chris and my’s mother, Shirley Cardella. He also was welcomed into my mother’s family and he began a kinship and friendship with them that would last the remainder of his life, including his last days in the ICU as many of them visited him.

Together, my parents made a great team, because like my father, my mother’s life has been one of service and giving until there’s nothing left to give. Following the path of the nurse and giving, my father took the position as a private duty nurse in a nursing home for a fire fighter who had fallen in the line of duty due to faulty respiratory equipment. Though the patient was in a vegetative state the rest of his life, my father cared for this man for nearly twenty years changing his garments, shaving him, feeding him and loving him until the man eventually passed away.

While working full time as a private duty nurse my father started his catering business with one of the kitchen staff at the nursing home. The catering business included anyone in the family “who could breathe” according to my mom, which meant the formative years of my brother and my life included a lot of helping on catering jobs on the weekends. His first catering job was for his best friend’s wedding where my dad created a wedding cake made entirely of finger foods like salami, cheeses and olives (don’t worry, there was also traditional wedding cake) and his signature tomato roses that took him twenty minutes each to make. My dad was an amazing chef but a poor businessman—he would spend twenty minutes peeling a tomato and fashioning it into a rose and then charge the client for the tomato alone. To my dad, loving people through food was a calling. He didn’t do it for the money, he did it because he loved to feed people. He loved to give.

After he stopped working as a private duty nurse my dad took a job as a teacher’s assistant at Gloria Dei Lutheran School, where Chris and me already attended and where he and my mom already somehow made time to set the standard for volunteer hours at that volunteer driven school. He continued to do catering jobs on the side while he made sure students were safe, cared for and never beat him at four square or at the basketball games of 21 and HORSE.

How many people in this room lost to my dad at four square, 21 and/or HORSE? Raise your hands. Look around.

Meanwhile, he and my mom spent hundreds of hours a year volunteering with various fundraisers for the school, long after my brother and me had graduated. Still, those volunteer efforts and the coordinating of the fundraisers took their toll as my mom would often set aside work she had brought home—like scheduling her nurses or evaluations of her nurses, to figure out how many pizzas had been sold, who sold them and how to get the customers their product. My parents are the giving tree. They give and they give.

Eventually, Gloria Dei asked him to provide a hot lunch for students once a week. So, his life calling to love people through food was realized again and he started providing lunches for students, faculty and staff. As one of his former colleagues reminded us, no one left Fil’s kitchen hungry. If a child couldn’t afford lunch, Fil made sure they ate. “No money, no problem,” was his mantra.

The giving tree.

The hot lunch program eventually expanded to a daily program and Fil, and Shirley on her days off from her own 50-60 hour a week job, poured their souls into it. Gloria Dei was like a family to them and to so many of us here today. As much as I’ve come to love St. Johns, I wish this service could have been at Gloria Dei.

I want you to raise your hands if you ever had a meal that Fil made. Go ahead, raise them high.

Fil and Shirley gave until there was nothing left to give. Literally. In 2008, Fil had to stop the hot lunch program because it had emptied their savings account. Why did they do this? For all of these hands that have been raised today. He gave and he gave until he had no more to give, just like the giving tree, because that’s how he showed us that he loved us so much. Because that’s who he was.

After he and my mom retired they turned to their backyard garden, which I hope I properly hyped on CaringBridge. My parents created a beautiful oasis full of flowers for themselves, their dogs and for birds and for squirrels. Then they planted tomatoes and cucumbers, which produced more than they could ever eat. So they gave them to their neighbors. Even in his last years my father used his life to provide for others.

Of course, as most of you know, my dad also loved to write and give away his poetry. Raise your hand if you ever heard one of my father’s poems or received one in the mail?

He loved to give his poetry to friends and family.

In our family we each received his poems, especially on special occasions. My dad loved to read his Christmas poem at the huge family get togethers at the homes of my mom’s beloved relatives—his beloved family. Of course he also brought food to share. He was proud of being a part of that family and he was so proud of his grandchildren and his daughters in law. There’s little doubt that he preferred them to Chris and myself, and for good reason, his daughter-in-laws are both amazing and he loved them as his own daughters. As for his grandchildren, well, they’re my own kids and I think I speak for him when I say they’re the very best.

He set a good standard for Chris and myself, by marrying well. He loved our mom so much. In his final years my mom poured everything she had into his care. Without her, Chris and me would not have been able to provide the skilled nursing care he needed. She kept him alive and well. One of the doctors who had known my mom and dad over a decade told my mom that she had been more than a nurse for my dad, but a doctor for him.

Through the ups and downs and final moments of my dad’s time in the ICU this spring as we stood by him as he passed I couldn’t help but think of him as the Giving Tree—he had given so much he simply had nothing left to give. But like the boy in the story of the Giving Tree who returns at the end of the story to the tree who by then is but a stump, I just want to sit with my father and rest. Safe in the memory of his love and his legacy of giving.

Thank you for joining me in doing that today.