Robert Thadeus Brzycki

Every man has two deaths: when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal. ~Ernest Hemingway
On August 6, 2024, my father, Robert Thadeus Brzycki, passed after a short yet brutal battle with oral cancer. He was eighty-one and leaves behind his wife of sixty-two years, Gloria, many valued relatives, and many true friends.
I believe that, in the end, dad was sincerely happy at having enjoyed a loving and lasting relationship with his wife and with me, and that he was immensely proud after having experienced a brilliantly decorated career in the United States Air Force. He certainly came a long way from his troubled upbringing in Milwaukee. Dad was intelligent and funny and loved to travel and try everything in any restaurant, and he loved talking with strangers and doing his chores at home and having breakfast with his Wednesday morning pals and working with his close police-officer friends in Madbury.
My fondest memory of dad was a trip we took a few years back to Seville, Spain-a place we, as a family, stayed for five years back in the 1970s while my dad served in the Air Force. Mom insisted that we go together and that we have the time of our lives, so we flew-now, two older gentlemen, I in my 50s-first class and stayed in the lovely and historic Hotel Alfonso XIII. Every Spanish meal that we shared was filled with warm conversation, hearty laughs, and the best of wine, accompanied, of course, by a rousing toast to mom; our pool-time each afternoon, cocktails in hand, was simply relaxing; walking throughout the city with dad, where he would talk with anyone, sing with any street musician, and shop for gifts for mom and for his granddaughters, was always interesting...if not a touch embarrassing; and touring the AF base where we once lived, and visiting with old friends from his military days, and seeing all their new grandchildren swimming in the warm sea under the hot Spanish sun, was delightful and genuinely meaningful. In all, and while in southern Spain, we laughed, we cried, we talked and ate and drank, and we reflected on our past and basked in our lovely present, and we spoke affectionately and excitedly of our future. A future that now is gone-a future where memories will have to do.
I have no doubt that Dad's name will be mentioned fondly by many for years to come, that his second death, as Hemingway says, will not happen. And this gives me peace.
Robert Thadeus Brzycki....you are missed.
~Love & Memories, Robert Jr. & Gloria