Francis J. DeStefano R.I.P.

My son Francis took his life on January 15 at the age of 58 after being tormented for years by mental illness. Here is a eulogy prepared for him by his brother Ed.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Ed DeStefano, the second of 6 children born to our parents Frank and Linda. Francis was my older brother. 

As I reflected back on Fran’s life this week, looking through pictures, and remembering our lives together, some things occurred to me that really defined who he was.

He was so so smart

He was abundantly kind, not just kind but abundantly kind. He would do anything to help anyone and he would always turn the other cheek. 

He also wanted to make his mark, do something important, leave a legacy.

He had strong faith not just in God but in humanity. 

In the later years of Fran’s life he fought hard to overcome mental illness but before all that he was a strong, capable, smart guy. This is the Fran I like to remember, the Fran I know. The one who excelled at everything he did. When we were boys we played baseball in little league. Fran was a star, he could hit and played a number of positions but mostly he was a great catcher. Very rarely would you see a kid in little league throw someone out who was stealing second but Fran could. 

He was so cool and I looked up to him so much. We would ride our bikes to the hobby shop and buy things for our train sets, model rocket kits, or other hobby stuff. We would work together for hours in the basement building models. In the end his were always perfect. The assembly, not too much glue, things perfectly in alignment, perfect paint job. My models would be a mess, they would fly but his would win best in show too.

For most of our childhood I was the tag along, Fran would be going to a youth group meeting and have to bring me along. There was Friday night volleyball, dungeons and dragons at his friends houses, scouts, high school theatre, and he had to bring me along. But he did and didn’t complain - that’s the Fran I know.

He got chosen to go to Talcott mountain and came back with an electronic device he built with Integrated circuits. This is when our TV still had tubes. He taught me to solder and tried to explain how it worked. I never got it. I always loved music and wanted to play guitar. When I gave up on my lessons he took it up and learned to play beautifully. 

There were pictures of him helping with my first house, and at birthday parties for my kids. Reading to my daughter and playing in the pool with a super soaker. He was a big kid, kind and fun and always a great brother to me, that’s the Fran I know.

After graduating college he started his own computer business. Consulting, writing software for customers and offering computer training. He called it Prince Computing, I was in awe of how easy it all was for him. I used to joke with him that my small excavating business should be called Pauper Excavating.

The last time I had the occasion to speak on his behalf was at his wedding. I doubted his decision to get married and it was a struggle to put something together that I felt comfortable saying. In the end I realized that Fran knew what he was doing. He picked the right person.  He and Joan had two boys who have grown to be amazing people. Both smart, capable, and kind, very much like the Fran I know. 

So this is his legacy – to have been a great son and brother, not just to me but to his 4 sisters too. To have accomplished so much in life and helped so many along the way. To have climbed so many mountains only to climb another. To have two young boys that are now men that are making their way in the world and have already accomplished so much. Francis has left his mark on all of us. 

Lastly I would like to touch on his faith. This was unshakable and if you ask me at times over the top. Nevertheless Francis believed in God and was a soldier of the lord. God gave him a burden to carry and Francis fought hard to bear it. But even in the fight Francis never was angry or hurtful, he would smile and laugh at a joke or make a gentile gesture. That’s the Fran I know.

I learned recently that Saint Francis had a different way of looking at death, Saint Francis chose to embrace death as one so close to him as to be called “Sister.” St. Francis tells us rather than battle sister death to love and welcome sister death. Some­day Sister Death will greet us and we will go home to our God who created us, loves us, and re­deems us through Jesus our Savior. In dying we are born to eternal life.

Francis believed this and I believe he is now at rest in paradise. Maybe working on a new guitar riff with Jimi Hendrix or the classical equivalent. 

RIP Fran

 

Nature's Vaccine

Finally, my wife and I tested positive for Covid a couple of weeks before Christmas. She had attended a luncheon gathering of about 90 women on Monday, December 5. On Thursday she began to feel fatigue and had a slight fever. On Saturday, she tested positive and took to bed. That night I began to cough and also had a slight fever. On Monday, I took a home test but it was negative. Next day, I went to a drive in testing center and tested positive. Our doctor had already prescribed an anti-viral for her, and did so for me after my positive test.

I can’t say that our symptoms were more than mild and we never exhibited shortness of breath or any other life-threatening symptoms. We are both in our eighties and have been vaccinated twice with one booster. After a few days of self-imposed quarantine, we began to feel better. We were sick but did not die despite our advanced years. Over the Christmas holidays many people I knew contacted Covid and their cases proceeded much like ours.

 

Thank goodness we have an immune system that immediately springs into action when it detects an invading viral horde. Our mouths and nasal passages are full of warrior cells and bacteria without whose protection we would have long ago become extinct. 

 

When the coronavirus enters our system, the battle begins. Like any war it can cause great damage while it is waging. What we call symptoms--sniffles, coughing, fever, and fatigue-- are the results of the battle. We know by now that 99% of the time our immune system wins the battle. *

 

We also know that most of those who have died have been elderly. Some have suggested that our immune systems get weaker with age, but others have suggested that they get stronger after a lifetime of fighting various diseases, and that they produce an overly aggressive response to the invader that leads to inflammation, pneumonia, and death.

 

Last year I read an article that claimed that our immune system does not get weaker or stronger with age, but a factor that mitigates or controls the immune reaction does get weaker with age. It’s as if to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we launch a preventative nuclear strike.

 

Some scientists have argued that controlling the inflammatory response of our immune system against the virus is the way to handle the pandemic. Vaccines do not prevent us from getting infected but are designed as a kind of early warning system for the immune system, and thus prevent a deadly overreaction. 

 

In the opinion of my scientific advisor, a master biologist, the Omicron variant might be a blessing in disguise with the potential to be much more effective than any vaccine or booster. He had this to say in an email exchange in which he calls it "Nature's Vaccine."

 

The vaccines are RNA based which cause us to produce a protein (Spike Protein) which the Covid virus uses to attach to our cells.  However, a slight change in the spike protein due to a virus mutation could render the vaccine useless as we are seeing with Omicron.  I call Omicron "nature's vaccine" because our immune system will mount a response not only to the spike protein but to other vulnerable parts of the virus. This should produce long lasting immunity not only to Omicron but to similar Covid viruses.  So far, baring comorbidities, the Omicron seems to be mild, in fact, probably even milder than the booster vaccine!  It is more contagious and therefore probably will lead to herd immunity.  I do not buy the idea that the reason Omicron is milder is due to the fact that people have been vaccinated. To me, it is milder as the virus is going through evolution where it wants to remain "alive" and the best way to do that is not to kill its host.

Viruses have been manipulating human as well as all of the other organisms' DNA since life began on this planet. This manipulation has fostered the evolution of life on the  planet. Who knows? Covid-19 survivors and their offspring may now possess protection against an even more potentially lethal, future virus. Also, humans have over 140,000 different varieties of viruses living in our digestive system whose main purpose is to control the bacterial population of our digestive system which in turn is vital for well-being. We could not possibly survive or evolve without viruses.

 

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*Note: So far there have been over 101,000,000 reported cases in the USA, and about 1.1 Million deaths from Covid. However, most authorities agree that many cases have not been reported. Even though some estimates have been higher, if we just multiply the number of cases by 2, the survival rate is over 99%.

Pope Benedict XVI, R.I.P.

The death last week of former Pope Benedict XVI at the age of 95 brought to mind a post written almost 10 years ago on the occasion of his dramatic resignation of the Papacy. Reading it over now, it sounds like an obituary.

The unprecedented retirement of Pope Benedict XVI has led to innumerable articles on the man and his pontificate. I am not able to discuss the achievements of his pontificate, but I would like to say a few words about my own impression of the man.

 I can’t say that I have any personal knowledge of the former Pope but unlike most commentators and pundits, I have at least read a couple of his books. A few years ago I read his Jesus of Nazareth an obvious attempt by the Pope to bring the results of a lifetime of work and study to a non-scholarly audience. I can’t say that I can remember much of the book or the Pope’s arguments. I do remember thinking that the Pope’s great intellect and learning were obvious on every page.

 When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected in 2006 at the age of 78, I was contemplating my own retirement after 36 years as a financial advisor. I had always advised my own clients that they should regard retirement not as an end, but as a new beginning; that it might finally give them an opportunity to do something that they had always wanted to do.

 In my own case I had been a scholar and teacher before circumstances forced me to change career and enter the world of financial service. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, but after a successful 36 years, I looked forward to getting back to history, my first interest. So it was easy for me to sympathize with Cardinal Ratzinger on his election. Here was a great, great scholar who had given up most of his last years in the service of the Vatican, an often-thankless job. He was lampooned and derided even by Catholics. During the pontificate of John Paul II, wasn’t Cardinal Ratzinger often referred to as the Vatican’s Rottweiler? Just when he might have thought that at age 78, he could enter into a peaceful retirement, return to his study, and complete his life’s work, he gets elected to one of the most difficult jobs on earth.

 Isn’t it incredible that even those who dislike the Catholic Church and especially the Papacy seem to expect so much from it? But what can a Pope actually do or accomplish? He cannot resort to the usual weapons at the disposal of governments today whether they are despotic or democratic. He has no taxing power. He cannot put you in jail or confiscate your property if you fail to put money in the collection basket. Despite what many non-Catholics might think he cannot order Catholics around or tell them what to do. He can advise but they often refuse to consent with no apparent loss or penalty. Some are shocked that the Catholic Church believes that the Pope is infallible. But this famous doctrine has only been used on one occasion since it was promulgated in 1870 by the first Vatican Council. Big deal.

 Upon his election Cardinal Ratzinger chose the name Benedict and he became the sixteenth Pope of that name which literally means “say good.” He said that he was thinking of the famous saint who founded western Monasticism back in the last days of the Roman Empire. But he was also thinking of Pope Benedict XV, a little remembered Pope who early in the twentieth century strove unsuccessfully to keep the great powers of Europe from plunging into the First World War. It was obvious that the new Pope saw himself as a peacemaker both within his own troubled Church and in the World. He did his best in the past seven years, but finally old age caught up to him and he wisely decided to step down.

 His life reminds me of a wonderful short story by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit. This little-known story, “Leaf by Niggle” is about a man who is attempting a painting of a leaf. He regards it as his life’s work but throughout he is constantly interrupted by the needs and demands of family, friends, and even strangers. He dies with the painting of the leaf unfinished but that’s not the end of the story. In the end we see Niggle in Heaven working on a painting of a huge tree containing thousands of beautifully painted leaves. Let’s hope that Pope Benedict will one day come to his own reward. Well-done, good and faithful servant. Rest in peace.

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