Petro Aidinian

Obituary of Petro Aidinian

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"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author, "The Little Prince"

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Petro "Pete" Aidinian was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1954 to a Greek mother and Armenian father. His childhood spanned cultures, growing up in Iran and mastering multiple languages, before moving to the United States as a teenager.

After graduating high school in California, Pete embraced an adventurous spirit – setting off to feel the wind in his face on a cross-country motorcycle ride and then attending Northrup University and getting his pilot's license.

He became a flight instructor, taking friends out to Catalina Island in between training flights. It was also on the west coast, where he was married and started a family.

He eventually joined the U.S. Army and became a medical specialist stationed in Georgia, which is where his second daughter was born. While he was skilled at caring for others and continued to work small flying jobs, Pete's life-long dream of being in the air led him to a career as a commercial airline pilot.

Years later, he would return to flight instruction, training other pilots in flight simulators in San Antonio. His patience teaching pilots helped when it came to teaching his daughters to drive. His key lesson: Drive so your passengers are comfortable.

Pete aimed to make people comfortable in their homes as well when he got his real estate license. He spent more than a decade as a realtor; occasionally taking a break to fill his sails on the water in Rockport.

It was in Texas where he proudly took the oath to become a U.S. citizen and cast his first vote. Anyone he met quickly learned of his politics. He was passionate and vocal, with firm beliefs in opportunity and equality.

He was also a movie buff, an avid reader, an artist, and tough competition for anyone playing him in Scrabble or chess.

While he didn't give in to opponents, he quietly helped others in the small ways he could.

When a bank's ATM issued an extra $20 after hours, and the bank teller the next day said they couldn't take it back because their audit didn't show it missing, Pete knew what he would do. "I told her (the bank teller) that the first homeless person I saw would receive a $20.00 bill compliments of her and the bank manager," he shared on Facebook. "She smiled."

"The world is less kind without him in it," wrote one of his dear friends. "I am going to make some snack bags in my car like he used to do and give them to homeless people in his honor."

When he left cash on his nightstand at his assisted living facility later in his life, he was warned it might not be safe given his door was always open and people came and went often. His reply was that he had told the staff, if there was something they really needed, they could take it.

"There is a reason Dad was universally loved by all he met. His soul was good," wrote his youngest daughter Pallas or P.J., who he affectionately called Peej.

He loved sharing a good joke and being surrounded by family and close friends, but ultimately, Pete didn't want a lot of fanfare. He playfully told a cherished companion in his final years that when he died, we could take his ashes and put a "spoonful at a time down the toilet."

He is preceded in death by his mother Elisabeth Manthopoulos, his father Yprem Aidinian, and his aunt Azalee and uncle Auyer Hosseini. He lives on through his sister Olga Aidinian, his cousins Leila and Naaz Hosseini, his daughters Dawn Campbell and Pallas Aidinian, his sons-in-law Ben Campbell and Konstantin Buecherl, and his beloved granddaughters Tessa and Elle.

In lieu of gathering around the loo to say goodbye, we'll pay tribute to his love of the water and wind by celebrating his life out at sea during Nowruz, or Persian New Year, which falls at the start of Spring and observes the end of darkness and the rebirth of nature.

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"If we are reborn, I would choose the pelican. It would be even better than flying an airplane, and I could eat sushi fresh out of the water all the time."

Pete Aidinian, Father & Grandfather