This is the story of my Dad.
Savo was born in 1941 in the village of Ramići, Bosnia, the third youngest of seven kids, in a country that was then called Yugoslavia to Danilo and Ikonija Tadić. It was the tiniest of villages and the place that time forgot. His mother never left that village and to her dying day never experienced running water or electricity. Completely disconnected from the world Savo wanted more, and so made a radio receiver from a living tree. He hung out there often and dreamed big things.
By the time he was in his teens he was barely home. He dreamed of university but knew that was impossible, and so he traveled the country and did odd jobs. He worked a crane. He joined the army. He met his future wife in a field and traveled to Germany with her, and then Canada once their application had been accepted in 1968. “I always knew,” he told me years later, “that I would end up in America or Canada one day.” And so he did.
They did not have two pennies to rub together and so more odd jobs followed. He worked in a glass factory. He cleaned carpets. He wanted a big family but accepted reality; he did not want his kids to be poor the way that he had and so the young couple decided on two. Their first daughter was born in 1970, the very picture of her father, and their second girl in 1975. By then they had a small house on the subway line, a huge achievement for recent immigrants with very little education.
Two months after the birth of his youngest Savo started at Spacefile International and his fingers tingled. He strapped boxes, he drilled holes, he worked the punch press and the paint line and loved every minute. He became company foreman, then vice-president and finally, in 1987, president and owner.
By the late 90’s Savo’s every dream had been realized. He had a thriving business, a big house, nice cars in the driveway and daughters with university degrees. But something else had followed him and it would be the greatest trial of all.
A tremor had started in his right arm, which followed to his leg, which followed to freezing and stiffness and a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease in 1996. The symptoms got worse and life went down a path he did not expect. He was forced to sell his business in 2002 and bit by bit, became a shadow of the man he once was. The disease was relentless and his life was not easy. After going into cardiac arrest in March 2016 and getting a pacemaker, he was in the transitional ward of St. Joseph’s for just over a year and then at the Chartwell Westbury long-term care facility for just under a year when he came down with an inexplicable fever. It would not be broken. Savo died at Trillium Hospital on May 17th, 2018, just thirteen days before his 77th birthday.
In a lot of ways this is a sad story, especially if you only knew Savo in those final years. But he who loves leaves a lasting legacy and Savo’s is a great one: In his daughters, his wife, extended family, friends, and all the kids who called him Grandpa; in the many, many people he helped over the years, Savo lives on.
Celebrate Savo with what he valued and loved: Hard work, education, fine spirits, great food, and a deep belly laugh. And until the day we are all together again I think this sage Irish blessing says it best:
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
