Michael Tirona: A Well-Lived Life

On January 24, 2022, my beloved dad, Michael Anthony Tirona, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Last Thursday (February 24, 2022), I delivered his eulogy at the memorial service celebrating his life. My brief eulogy is an attempt to capture the magnificence of his well-lived and beautiful life.

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Thank you so much for joining us today as we honor and remember our father, Michael Anthony Tirona. Your presence means so much to our family, and we take great comfort in your love and friendship. Thank you especially to Fr. John, Fr. Vic and the entire St. Francis of Assisi staff and community for creating this warm and lovely memorial service for our father.

My mom has asked me to share some brief reflections about our father, and I will try to do so. A five-minute eulogy cannot possibly encompass the magnificence of his well-lived life. Candidly, I could write volumes about my dad because he was, quite simply, the best person in the world that we have ever known, and his impact was manifold and manifest. But, in a manner befitting the way my dad would often express himself, I’ll try to keep my reflections brief, meaningful, and to the point.

Our dad was a born leader, who inspired and mentored many over his lifetime. As the eldest of 8 children, I suppose, it could be expected that he would fill that role. He was tasked — along with his best friend, my Uncle Larry — to take care of the younger ones. But he embraced that role quietly and lovingly, with just a little bit of mischief thrown in for good measure. Unsurprisingly, he would take up that leadership mantle throughout his career. When he was much younger, our dad made a list of his goals, one of which included securing an international posting by the age of 40. Being, of course, our focused, prepared, and planful dad, he achieved that goal and surpassed it when he became the president of the European division of an international tire manufacturing corporation. But that achievement — while significant — isn’t mostly what people remember him for. Rather, they remember his kindness, empathy, and generosity. Former colleagues — from 20, 30, 40 years ago — remember him as an amazing leader and manager who was compassionate, supportive, and caring. In fact, one former colleague was so impacted by our father’s mentorship that he named his second child after our dad. Such was the imprint of our father’s leadership.

He was also a keen and clever athlete, who believed in the fundamentals, the team, and the joy of the game. I bring up his love of sports because it was such an integral part of his personality. In playing sports — golf, volleyball, tennis but especially baseball — he fully expressed his hopes, his dreams, and his zest for life. He found inspiration in sports movies like The Natural, Chariots of Fire, and Field of Dreams, and he loved baseball so much that he took my mom to Cooperstown to celebrate their 25th anniversary. He also passed on his love of sports to my sister Maribel and me, and he used athletics as a vehicle through which to teach life lessons:

• You need to master the fundamentals to do well.
• Practice makes progress.
• It’s always about the team’s success, not your individual triumph.
• Do your best, you can do no less.
• But above all, have fun and do it for the love of the game. When Roy Hobbs, in The Natural, says, “God, I love baseball” — well, that might as well have been our dad saying that.

He was an adventurer, who was unbridled in his curiosity and zest for life. Over the course of their marriage, our parents lived in 19 different places, as far ranging as Iowa, Singapore, Jakarta, Belgium, and Henderson. Our dad also traveled extensively, having visited 6 of the 7 continents; he would often send us postcards and photos or bring back souvenirs from his trips to places like Brazil, Tanzania, Morocco, Pakistan, and Borneo. But more importantly, he imparted to us — my sister and our children — an interest in other cultures, other peoples, and other places. There wasn’t any food or drink he wouldn’t try and — barring some significant risk — no new activity or sport he wouldn’t attempt (like archery, downhill skiing and horseback riding). He was a global citizen who believed that travel and learning about other cultures made us better people.

He was the ultimate family man. For our father, it was family first, above all else, and we couldn’t ask for a more loving and generous father and more doting and fun-loving Lolo. For our children Beatrice and Eoghan, their Lolo was the greatest. Although my sister and I knew how much he loved us, his love for his grandchildren was off the charts. He spoiled them, naturally, that was his way. But, even more importantly, he was deeply invested in their happiness, health, safety, and growth. Their memories of him are filled with laughter, fun, and joy.

It’s hard for me to talk about how much my sister Maribel and I loved our dad and how much we were loved by him. He was the first man to love us both, and we learned early on that to be loved meant to be respected, supported, cheered on, and cared for. We wanted for nothing growing up and were always safe, happy, healthy, and secure. During the darkest hour of our family’s life — when my sister and I were both hospitalized and in comas struck seriously ill with covid — our father, deeply faithful, kept, with our mom, a vigilant and prayerful watch over us; I know that his daily texts and calls with my husband, Ephraim, provided my husband a steadying connection during that most difficult time. As Ephraim said to me shortly after my dad died, “I learned how to be a family man from your dad.” Our father was — and remains — the emotional core of our family.

Of course, we wouldn’t be a family without the love between our dad and our mom that forms its foundation. Our dad was the love of my mom’s life, and our mom was the love of his. They met and fell in love when he was 18 and she was 20, and their marriage is nothing but a treasure trove of happy memories and adventures. There were struggles, of course, as any strong marriage would experience, but the foundation of their relationship is so strong — built on mutual respect, a belief in their partner’s goodness and strengths, and a deep, unconditional love that takes one’s breath away. Their marriage was also shaped by their shared Catholic faith which they actively practiced throughout their five decades together — from Cursillo and Marriage Encounter in the 1980s to serving in different ministries at the many churches of which they were members both here in the United States and in Europe and Asia.

When I think about how young they were when they fell in love, it reminds me that they grew up together and that who my dad was — generous, kind, compassionate, strong — was formed by his love for our mom. Even after 52 years of marriage, our dad would refer to our mom as his sweetheart, his darling, and his beautiful wife. They still held hands and were as affectionate as those youngsters who met in college many moons ago. Theirs is the greatest love story ever told.

We are so grateful for your presence as we celebrate our dad’s life. I do have two requests, though, as we leave today. First, I ask that you continue to create community around our mom and continue to shower her with love and support. She was the love of our dad’s life, and I can think of no better way to honor him. Second, you can also honor him by telling your loved ones how much you love and cherish them. My dad took nothing for granted and left nothing unsaid, so we were blessed with knowing how much he loved us, and he knew how much we loved him. By doing so, his legacy and lifeline extends far beyond his corporeal existence.

I want to end with this brief passage from the poem On the Death of the Beloved by John O’Donohue, and I hope you feel my father’s presence and blessing as I read it:

Let us not look for you only in memory,

Where we would grow lonely without you.

You would want us to find you in presence,

Beside us when beauty brightens,

When kindness glows

And music echoes eternal tones.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.

To serve the call of courage and love

Until we see your beautiful face again

In that land where there is no more separation,

Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,

And where we will never lose you again.

I believe our father is with us always, and any and every expression of love brings the vibrancy of his continuing life and love into the world.