Grieving son pens heartfelt tribute to late father who died in isolation: "My dad was a great man"

The nightmarish reality that this pandemic has thrown us into has robbed us of countless precious aspects of our lives. The familiarity of routines, the comfort of social gatherings, the thrill of new experiences, the freedom to explore the innumerable offerings of mother nature; all snatched away from us in seemingly the blink of an eye. However, all that pales in comparison to the loss of our loved ones and the opportunity to spend their final moments by their side. Moreover, grieving family members can no longer take solace in traditional mourning practices as the need for social distancing bars us from coming together and sharing the pain.

On Wednesday, John Pijanowski—a professor of ethics and educational leadership at the University of Arkansas—lost his beloved father to the novel Coronavirus. Like many across the globe who've lost loved ones in recent times, he couldn't be by his father's side in those final moments. Having been denied the chance to bid a proper goodbye to the man who raised him, Pijanowski took to Twitter to share a heartfelt eulogy for his old man. I want to tell you about my dad, Donald John Pijanowski. He was born on October 30, 1932 and he passed away today at 12:07 pm, April 1, 2020, he began.

The doctors tell us it was covid19 which means we were not allowed in the hospital to be with him for his last days. Instead of gathering around him and each other we are mourning via texts and video and putting our faith in the brave nurses and doctors caring for him that he was not alone, Pijanowski continued. My dad was a great man. There are no buildings named after him, he left behind no fortune, and there are no books that tell his story. He was not great in the way we often try to define the term - he was great in that he was such a *good* man - good to his core, unfailingly good.

As the youngest of ten children born during the Great Depression the stories of his childhood always seemed harsh, but he never told them that way. Stories of his youth were always told with a warm sense of nostalgia and a twinkle in his eye, he revealed. They slept 3 kids to a bed, 1st to wake up got to choose their shoes, there were 2 Christmas presents for all the kids combined - one gift for the boys to share, and one for the girls, and how the girls were the best ballplayers in their sometimes rough Buffalo neighborhood.

He joked of how his mom often had to stretch food seemingly beyond its natural limits and as recently as last week was wishing for a taste of his mom’s spinach soup. The stories of his work ethic were legendary. He wasn’t a suit & tie guy, he was a green bar of lava soap guy. He had many jobs through the years (like wiring houses & steel manufacturing) & his career was ultimately building and later servicing huge industrial turbo compressors, Pijanowski continued.

Every time we drove down Union street he told me the same story of the job he had, & ultimately walked away from, painting those houses because the supervisor told him to only paint the parts that people could see from the street. “I could never do that” he would say every time. If my dad was doing a job for you then you knew he didn’t just do the parts he thought you could see, he did the entire job and he would not leave until it was done right, the devastated son reminisced. 

Wherever I went with my dad he seemed like the coolest guy in the room. His sports exploits were also the stuff of legend. When he was younger he would get manufacturing jobs and favorable shifts so he could play on their company baseball teams, Pijanowski continued. I heard tales growing up of a home run he hit at Schiller Park that not only left the park but ended up hitting a house across the street. The last time we played with a football he was 55 years old and he threw his age - a 55 yard strike on the fly to me running a post pattern.

My dad was a great man because he left the world a better place for having been in it. He was an infinitely kind man with a sharp sense of humor who worked hard, played hard, and loved deeply. I will miss him every day of my life and be grateful I had the privilege to be his son, Pijanowski concluded.