A lifelong Newporter, he graduated from De LaSalle Academy, attended St. Anslems College for a time and then returned home to become a proud graduate of the University of Rhode Island.

His return home was a fortunate event in the history of the Crowley family as it led to the two loves that would define his life. The first love was his student activism driven a belief that each of us has a moral obligation to change in our community for the better. This belief led him to pursue a career in public service for the benefit of his home, the City of Newport and the State of Rhode Island. The second love, and with respect to the Crowley family, began with a date with a beautiful young student at Salve Regina University from Springfield Massachusetts named Diana Podgurski. She was to become the love of his life.

Paul and Diana married and she became his devoted wife of 37 years. Theirs was a love that only grew stronger with the passing of the years until the last night of my father’s life, when my mother stood vigil over him holding his hand and comforting him until the moment he drew his final breath.

The key to understanding my father is that, he helped people because it was simply his nature to help people. And it is because this was his nature that we loved him. He did not help people to gain wealth or recognition and because he did not seek recognition much of the good that he did exists now only in the memories of the people that he helped. Helping someone simply because it is the right thing to do is a motive so rare these days that we scarcely believe that it exists.

My father was the living embodiment of this and we loved him for it. My father was a man who was incapable of hatred. This does not mean that he did not take strong stands and he was often on the unpopular side of important issues, but nothing was ever personal with him. Even during the most contentious disagreement he kept things in perspective and always sought a path to compromise. He matched this with a generous spirit and a saintly capacity for forgiveness.

My father had vision. He had the rare combination of gifts to not only see what was possible, but the perseverance to follow-through and make that vision a reality.

One area where his public legacy was particularly important to him was education. He believed that all children deserve the fair shot in life that only a solid education can provide. He believed this so strongly that it became the unfaltering theme to his 27 years in the General Assembly. The changes he effected were gradual which made them difficult to see, but also made them lasting. Enduring good works result from the slow accretion of small deeds over a long span of years, a perfect match for the patience and persistence of my father.

My father’s life held the spark of creation, he was star that we circled. He was as fearless in his pursuits as he was eclectic. He was a rugby prop, a restaurateur, a statesman, a novelist, a golfer, a world traveler, a screenwriter, an Irish tenor who produced his own album for his grandchildren and the best tour guide that Ireland ever had. He knew how to have a good time, in fact he was expert at it.

He was also a mentor and teacher for his family, his legislative and professional peers and countless men and women who worked at the La Forge over the past thirty years. Above all this he was the best father, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend and husband you could ever ask for and I was immensely proud to be his son.

My father loved to sing and it was even odds that if you stopped by Crowley’s Pub on a Friday night you would be treated to a serenade of the timeless Irish classics, whether you wanted to or not.

My father had just settled down into the peaceful cadence of a satisfied life when he was taken from us. At the end of his life his faith was strong enough that he was not afraid of death, but he loved life and did not want to leave this world with so much left to do and so many songs to be sung. His was a life with room for grief and for love and for song.

The day I first learned my father was sick sticks out like a scar upon my memory. On that day, my heart was torn. For the only time in my life I was lost in unrestrained grief. I saw a future of an empty seat at the Thanksgiving table, a missing face at grandchildren’s birthdays, a soulful Irish tenor at weddings now silent, an empty stocking at the Christmas mantle and an empty place in my heart.

He was our center and now our center is gone and we must carry on.

It is the natural order of things that children bury their parents, yet each death is a quiet catastrophe for those left behind. When you loose a parent at a young age, the pain is more acute for the lost decades that you could have had. The terrible irony of our existence requires that all things we love are lost to us and great love can never exist without great grief.

The more that we love someone the greater our pain is when they are lost. Grief is love’s shadow. Memories fade like embers in the fire, yet in sharing these memories we can keep them alive.

The past few weeks I have shared many memories of my father with many friends and family. Each time we shared those memories those embers grew brighter and our hearts grew warmer.

My sister now will share some of her happiest memories so that the heat of them might warm us.

Let not the song of my father be unsung.

Matthew J. Crowley
September 27, 2007
St. Augustin’s Church
Newport, RI