Loving memories

Two teens cope with Father's Day after their dads' deaths. Only by keeping busy and cherishing the good times they had with their dads can the hurt fade, they say.

By ALINE MENDELSOHN

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

Seventeen-year-old Mary Burns is making a scrapbook, filling the pages with snapshots, a Shel Silverstein poem and a wrapper from a bouquet of red roses that her dad gave her after she performed in a play.

In the margins, she is writing memories, about the Tarzan movies and a game called Punchbuggy.

Frank Burns died last summer.

Fourteen-year-old Danielle Ruggieri spent Father's Day last year at a cemetery in California. This year, she has asked her aunt to lay a rose on her dad's grave.

Frank Ruggieri died around Thanksgiving 1998.

The two St. Petersburg High School students think of Father's Day as cooking breakfasts and choosing neckties and glueing cards of construction paper.

In coping with loss, both teenagers keep themselves occupied, Mary in a whirl of school responsibilities, Danielle in dance.

In the quiet moments, without the distractions, comfort may be found in a photo album or a treasured locket.

"Sometimes I get the fear that I'm going to forget him -- what he sounded like, what he looked like," Mary said.

Mary Burns, the baby of the five Burns children, was her father's "favorite youngest daughter."

When she told Frank Burns she loved him, he would reply, "And I do."

"He was an alcoholic and stopped drinking when I was born, so he had always said that we kind of grew up together," Mary said. "He grew in his sobriety and I grew in age."

Mary felt closest to her dad, but during her ninth-grade year, her parents divorced. She didn't hesitate to let her dad know of her anger and feelings of betrayal.

That bitterness lingered until summer 1998. She was 15. Burns left his job at St. Paul's Catholic School and he needed to talk to her. As they drove to Sunset Beach, Mary pressed him: "I can't believe you quit your job. Why did you quit?"

"I'll tell you on the beach," he said.

As they walked in the sand, he put his arm around her. The dread rose from her stomach even before he told her the news: The prostate cancer he had fought several years before had returned. He had a year to live.

They sat on a bench and watched the sunset. They didn't speak.

"I realized how much of a jerk I had been and that I needed to make up for that whole year," Mary said. "And I never regret that I had acted that way toward him because I know that it took that for me to grow into the person who I am."

In the next 12 months, Mary watched her dad deteriorate. The same man who lifted her with one hand when she was 5 had lost so much weight that he told her: "My skin doesn't fit me anymore."

On a night last July, Burns' girlfriend called. She had something to tell Mary, but it could wait until the morning.

"I had a weird feeling in my stomach and I don't know what drove me over there," Mary said.

Her father was in bed, breathing through an oxygen mask. As he tried to sleep, she rubbed his back and told him about a movie she had seen. Several hours later, as she left, she told him, "I love you."

He said, "And I do."

He died early the next morning. He was 55.

When Mary returned to school the next month, she "wanted some kind of acknowledgement of what had happened," she said. "People were supportive in the way they knew how to be supportive. But there was more a lack of words."

On the first day of homeroom, students filled out cards with general personal information, including parents' names. Fighting tears, she approached her teacher and she pointed to the blank space: "What if you don't have a father?"

This past school year, Mary stepped up her involvement in drama, the community service club, student government, Students Against Drunk Driving -- while maintaining a near-perfect grade point average.

She played Little Red Riding Hood during the school's performance of Into the Woods. For good luck, she wore an oval locket that holds her dad's picture and a strand of his hair.

At the end of the school year, to Mary's surprise, a number of classmates signed her yearbook and acknowledged her strength in the face of loss.

"I tell my friends, "Your dads are cool guys. Try to get to know them. They could die tomorrow,' " Mary said.

Today, Mary is gathering with her siblings at her oldest sister Kathleen's house in St. Petersburg. Kathleen is keeping her plans a secret for now, but they'll spend the day remembering Frank Burns.

For most of Danielle's life, Frank Ruggieri lived on the other side of the country. They would speak on the phone just about every other day and spend at least 10 weeks a year together.

Every summer, for a month, she stayed with him in Southern California. She remembers a time filled with games, movies and rides in his rusted, orange-brown Camaro. When she was old enough to drive, the car was supposed to be hers, but she thought it was ugly.

In November 1998, Danielle was an eighth-grader looking forward to the winter holidays. The day before Thanksgiving, her aunt called from California.

Ruggieri had suffered a massive heart attack and was in a coma. When Danielle and her mother flew out to see him, he was on life support. The doctors said it was a matter of days.

Early on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Danielle and her mom returned to Largo. Danielle insisted on keeping her routines -- school, dance class, homework -- all the while waiting for any news.

That Wednesday, her father died. He was 58.

"I knew she was very, very close to her father and I guess a lot of it was because we were separated," said her mother, Toni Ruggieri. "I expected her to really fall apart on me, but she took me by surprise because she was so strong."

Danielle couldn't attend the memorial service but went to school that day, finding support in her friends. She went to dance class, which has proven to be a form of therapy.

"When I dance, I forget about everything else," she said. "Now I dance with more feeling."

Dancing has taken her all over Florida for competitions, most recently in Orlando, where she won an award for a solo tap dance.

"I was thinking about my dad and grandma during my dance," she said.

Danielle says she doesn't openly express her grief. Sometimes, Mrs. Ruggieri will find her lying on her bed, poring over photo albums. Danielle will try to hide the album under her arm.

Sometimes, Danielle will come downstairs, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

"What's wrong?" her mom will ask her.

"Nothing," Danielle says. "I was just sneezing."

Since December 1998, she has lost her father and both grandmothers. Another aunt has cancer.

"The hardest part is knowing that they are not there," Danielle said.

After her dad died, his family sold the Camaro. Danielle protested because the car held so many memories, and the memories keep her going.

"Instead of thinking of all the sad stuff, think about the good, the happy things that you did together with your loved one," she said. "At least they're not suffering anymore."

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