Quack Quack night night

My dad died on this date, August 4, in 2008. I was looking for a file on my computer the other day when I came across a Word document which I read at his funeral. It talked about names my dad had been known by over the years. I had forgotten I wrote it. That led to my writing this.

In addition to the names I mention below, there was another fondly sarcastic name I heard my dad called one day by a woman in the plant where he was a supervisor and who had known him for many years. It was an ice cream plant and I was working there as a summer replacement when I was in college. The woman saw me talking to my dad in the factory and after he left she came over to me and said, “The only times I have ever seen ‘Old Smiley’ smile is when he is with you.”

I have never known anyone as devoted to his family as was my dad. He hated working where he worked. However, he was a man with integrity. He did not short his employer or shirk his duties and he was fair with everyone who worked for him. That didn’t mean he was easy to work for. He expected you to do your job and if you did he treated you well. If you did not, you did not work for him for very long.

I don’t have a specific memory of him telling me he loved me. I did not need that. I knew he loved me. I wrote a letter to him many years ago for Father’s Day. I told him about all of the things I remembered about him when I was growing up. The times we would go places together on a Saturday like the time we went to Aquatic Park in San Francisco and found some bocce ball courts with old Italian men playing each other. I was probably ten or so. These were not frequent events but they were just the two of us. My mother once told me she would see him quietly reading that letter over and over.

I learned to argue with my dad. That may not sound like a loving thing, but it was. These were times when we would express differences of opinion with each other. It was not done in a disrespectful manner. As I grew older I learned how to hold my own. I was visiting him when I was in my early twenties after he had ruptured a disc and had been laid up in bed. We got into one of our arguments. After we were going at it for a while I started laughing. He was confused. I told him I knew he was on the road to recovery; I had been baiting him and he had the strength to rise to the occasion.

His grandchildren, and his nieces and nephews, all of whom were on my mother’s side as my dad had been an only child, were very special to him. He was a good man.

The photo above is from September 1968 taken in front of my parents’ house. From the steps are my cousin and godfather Tucker. My dad, who was forty-six. Me age sixteen and my brother-in-law Russ. Long ago.

This is what I had read:

My dad was known by many names during his lifetime. His given name was George William. He hated the name George. Instead he went by the name Bill and sometimes Willie.

When my sister and I came along he became father or dad or daddy, but never “my old man”. His nieces and nephews called him Uncle Bill. When his grandson was born he became Bompa. When my daughters were born it changed to Grampa. To great nephews and nieces he was Grandpa Bill. In a card given to him by his grandson Cary he was called “old flatulence”. Only the word wasn’t flatulence.

My sister’s grandchildren called him GP. And my granddaughters called him Quack Quack. That wasn’t a comment on his mental state, but rather because he made a sound like Donald Duck.

A few days before he died we were gathered at his home. The youngest great grandchild, 20 month old Ciana, saw Dad lying in the hospital bed in the family room looking like he was going to sleep and said, “Quack Quack night night.” I held her as she bent down and gave him a kiss while he held his face up to her.

At Mass two days later my daughter Adrienne gave Ciana a book to occupy her. She opened the book to a picture of Mary holding the lifeless body of her son, Jesus, at the foot of the cross. Ciana immediately repeated, “Quack Quack night night.” Dad died the next morning.

The youngest one reminds us of something we older ones may have forgotten. Death is not the end. My dad often said if we truly believe what our faith teaches funerals should be upbeat and happy. We should rejoice. Sacred Scripture sometimes refers to the dead as sleeping or asleep. St. Paul reminded the Thessalonians, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Thess. 4:14)

My dad was right. Funerals should be more upbeat and happy. However, that is easier said than done. We still feel the loss. But we rejoice in the hope of the Resurrection and look forward to the time when we will awaken in one another’s company once more. Until that time we say, “Night night, Quack Quack. Sleep tight.”

Greg Gillen

July 18, 2025

© 2025 Greg Gillen

Image Credit/Greg Gillen

Scripture/New American Bible: Revised Edition