Good afternoon, my name is Christine Williams and I am a friend of the DiResta family.  I was asked to give the eulogy for Dennis and I consider it a great honor to do so. I am not a professional speaker but  Dennis was a friend of mine and I loved him.
ON THIS PAST Sunday, Father’s Day  at around 12:37 am, Dennis died.  He will be missed.


I would like to begin with a prayer

Father we have a deep need for your presence today. We invite your Holy Spirit to come in such a way, in which you bring mercy and comfort. We reach out to you our dear Father, and ask that a miracle happen today, that you pull back the curtains and you allow us to see a greater reality.

You allow,  somehow, for us to learn something from this and gain something through this that will make a difference in our lives.

Will you keep us on the path of life and of truth and will you allow that mercy to come in such a way that it lifts us and carries us. We ask this Father in Jesus' name. Amen.



When we say there is healing in tears and laughter is the best medicine, there is much truth is these statements so...... I ask you


Who was Dennis DiResta?  Well ..... through the years Dennis told me a lot about his growing up years, his struggles as a young child, his orphanage years,  the many times he cried as a child, the hardships he faced.  I believe that many of these experiences made him the man he was.   A compassionate, loving, generous, humorous,  God fearing man that struggled ..

One story that was told to me RECENTLY was that When Dennis was a little boy (maybe 9 or 10)  he would go to the Broadwalk - with his little brother Joe -on Coney Island and shine shoes and collect empty bottles THEN bring them to the store  FOR A PENNY OR TWO and then bring  the money home to his Mom -  he was so proud of the fact that he was a provider helping his family.      IMAGINE

Not all is known of those years ( he kept a lot of that to himself) but through bits and pieces we know he had some suffering. I MET DENNIS’ BROTHER Joe YESTERDAY  AND I DO NOT have the time to tell you all the stories he shared with us but I can tell you some were very funny and some were about life.

Let me give you a synopsis - At 17 Dennis he enlisted in the Navy but he had asthma and that ended.

He went to St. John’s University for a year or two , he then became a salesman and what a salesman he was, later he enlisted in the Marines - again the asthma so he was honorably  discharged again.  He wanted to serve ............................and that brings me to the man I knew
       
Dennis was generous, he shared everything he had
Dennis loved to help his friends
Dennis would give you the shirt off his back - LITERALLY
Dennis was funny, I remember every time we talked he would preface the story with one or more of these phrases:
   
    You ready for this...........  OR
    Your not gonna believe this......  OR
    Let me make a long story short  OR
    Your gonna laugh laugh laugh  and laugh we did...............
   
His humor was what helped get him through life. 

When my family met Dennis he was the married to JoAnn and they had 2 beautiful daughters,  he was CEO of his own company and proud of it.  He had worked towards this goal for a long time on this particular product was a wealth of information.......and it was finally coming to fruition and then .... it was snatched from him.  This was devastating ...  I am not sure he ever recovered completely from that loss. 

But a better salesman never existed - he had a way of convincing you that whatever it was he was selling  -- whether it be an idea, or a product, it was definitely something you wanted and just absolutely had to have.  He was very successful.

Dennis had many struggles and heartaches throughout his life but his love for his family was not one of them.  Though his battle with alcohol brought much sadness to him and his family and ultimately his demise, never once should we doubt the feelings deep in his heart for his entire family and I would even add friends. 

JoAnn, his wife of 33 years has asked me to tell you some of her thoughts and feeling about Dennis ------ SHE DID NOT FEEL SHE COULD DO THIS AT THIS TIME    and so I am speaking for her right now.

This past  Thursday night as she sat at home, after recieving his ashes, JoAnn thought about her husband of 33 years- she realized that this man taught her some very important life lessons and she wanted to share them with you. 

She called me on friday and as we spoke I could hear the love that JoAnn had for her husband.

There were three things that struck her deeply about the essence of this man ---the first being that

    Dennis is the one who brought his family to the Lord.  Dennis taught us there was so much more to loving Jesus and honoring him than just going to church on Sunday.  We were Catholic and adhered to the customs and obligations of the Catholic religion but Dennis saw the big picture and we learned from him.

    Dennis taught me to love and accept people outside our family and that these people have worth.  He took in homeless people, he would give his coat away, he would feed people without expecting anything in return.  It was a selfless love for others that touched my heart and I learned.  I will never be as good at it as Dennis was but I will continue to try.

    In the end after 33 years of marriage to Dennis I HAVE realized --- his story is tragic ---- but  the tragedy in and of itself is a lesson and I have realized that this story could perhaps help others and that could be a small part  of
 is his legacy to us.  And so once again I learned.

Yes we all go down different paths, we ask different questions, we make different journeys, but the heart is a heart that knows. And Dennis knew.  HE KNEW THE LORD.

Perhaps we wonder where that guardian angel was at that moment. But think about this, "God is the one we run to not run from.      He is the one who is bigger than all of this, bigger than any man or group of people who could take a man’s life."      And that God doesn't cause such a thing, but He certainly can redeem it.

That because God has given His creation a free will, He therefore doesn't control every moment. But when we give moments like this to Him out of our OWN volition, He will take those moments and control the outcome and redeem it and bring good out of it.


So I ask that you remember this man, this son,  this husband, this father, this grandfather, this brother for all the wonderful things his life produced - a loving wife - JoAnn- two loving daughters - Gina and Carla and HIS GRAND DAUGHTERS & Grandson , GIANA,Gisella, Gabiella, Galina and Eric, and his brother Joe  and many many friends who loved him no matter what.  
We are not here to judge - we will leave that to the Lord. 

Each of us, --  our resolve is needed today to love and to forgive and to treat others the way we indeed want to be treated. Dennis' legacy I believe will be this, ........ as a father he had the privilege to raise two beautiful daughters and in my mind this will be his legacy.  Hopefully he will also be instrumental in helping and teaching , if only one person, that you can change your life and this may occur through any one of us.  And so Dennis will leave some very important lessons. And WE will choose how  to respond to what has happened to him.  How will Dennis’ life and how will Dennis’ death affect us? How will we respond?
I want , on behalf of the family, to thank everybody for the amazing and overwhelming outpouring of support, prayer, and love that has been expressed to them over the past six days. Very difficult days.

Today we are the community of the hurting.

But we are also not only the community of the hurting we are the community of the helping. And we believe today that words shared, and prayers prayed and deeds done can triumph over death and triumph over wrong.  And we believe that in a way we can't understand we're summoned here today by a great need and also by a great God. And for each of us our shoulders are needed to lean on. Our hands are needed to hold. Our eyes are needed to weep. Our hearts are needed to feel. And our faith is needed to trust. And our love is needed to forgive.
Many times life changing events make us re-evaluate our own lives and so I ask - Let's only have good things come out of this one bad thing. Only good things


Thank you and God Bless!