Good morning
My
name is Paul Kruger and I would like to apologize in advance, for I am not a
preacher nor a speaker, but a close friend whom has been placed in an awkward
position. This morning I hope to capture the essence of the man, whom is my
friend, brother, advisor, and teacher. Sometime it is very hard to see things
in perspective when you are involved.
The
family would like to thank all of you for the flowers, and warm handshakes and
sympathetic statements in the last few days,
We
loved-ones are thankful for the close family and friends.
I
ask what is the purpose of a funeral,
To
pay respect for our loved one?
Perhaps.
In
reality no one can preach at our funeral; we preach our own funerals while we
live.
Anthony's
life will continue to speak meaningful things to those that he touched as long
as they live.
I
know there are many things that I have not thought in the last few days that
will eventually come to mind and will become a living memorial to his beloved
as long as we live.
Two
things influence men more than anything else, the books we read and the people
we meet.
Funerals
force us to reflect on life's true value.
The
writer John Milton wrote
'Death
is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.'
Funerals
remind us that death is very near to all of us.
I will now read a short poem
that
I think reflects the spirit of my
friend
and brother:
There
are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who
prey upon them with I.B.M. eyes and sell their hearts and guts
for
martinis at
There
are men too gentle for a savage world
Who
dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And
wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.
There
are men too gentle to live with wolves
Who
anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And
murder them for a merchants profit and gain
There
are men too gentle for the corporate world
Who
dream instead of candy apples and ferris wheels
And
pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.
There
are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who
devour them with eager appetite and search
For
other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry
There
are men too gentle for an accountants world
Who
dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And
search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.
There
are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who
toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such
gentle men are lonely in a merchants world.
Unless
they have a gentle one to love.
- James Kavanaugh
Family
friends and honored guests we are here today to celebrate the life of a man.
This
man Antonio Dattorro
Not
just a man but a father husband friend teacher warrior confidant and searcher.
I
have been a friend confidant of his for my entire adult life having shared both
joy and sorrow.
Born
of a loving family, he had his youth stolen from him due to circumstances
beyond him,
the
Bataan death march, prisoner for four years in Niigata, Japan, he suffered
transgressions that are extremely hard to comprehend, while many perished he
grew up very quickly and became a survivor,
Many
of the qualities that he lived by were formed at that time.
After
the war, came art school.
His
outlook on work can be expressed as the following:
Find
satisfaction in your work.
Neither
work to live alone, nor live to work.
But
be a craftsman who takes pleasure in his accomplishments.
One
could not express the depth of commitment to his work better than this.
Few
of us have the ability to express our selves the way he can, look around and
see the soul of him, for with a pencil or brush he shows us his heart, most men
would not allow us to see their inner thoughts, and hide in bluster and
pomp. A person true to himself, he would
not bend in his beliefs in both word and work, to some this quality offended,
to others it delighted as it is very refreshing.
Who
is this man
A
saint
The
devil?
A
mad man
Poet
A
searcher, an artist, a very good human.
I
believe he is all of these things.
What
is this searcher?
A
searcher is a person of strong belief that lives by his beliefs but never fears
to question, and look for other answers.
As
westerners we see life as a beginning and end, not so for Native Americans or
easterns, for them life is a journey with no beginning or end.
And are one with this earth.
It
is expressed in the oriental thought as the yin and yang of all things.
This
man lived by these things, always questioning, never judging, always accepting,
he accepted all as they were, without bias or bigotry, who of us can say the
same.
Once with a group of people who were
discussing beliefs,
And
a gal kept pushing Tony to explain his beliefs,
Never
one to be silent, he said without a pause 'I believe I will have another glass
of wine'.
On
a more serious thought, a philosopher he is an existentialist, not of the school
of Jean Paul Sartre but of the school that believes life is for the living and
that it should be lived to its fullest. And that he did, there was always a
presence when he was in a room.
When
asked about his religious beliefs, he quoted Muhatma Gandhi, who said if I
called myself, say a christian or a muslim man, with my own interpretation of
the bible or the Koran, I should not hesitate to call myself either, for then
hindu, christian, and muslim man would be the same terms.