My Father's Eulogy: Frank Peter Liberto
This eulogy is in remembrance of my amazing father, Frank Liberto, who passed away on October 5th from tragic complications after having heart surgery. I had the great honor of writing and speaking his eulogy at his beautiful funeral on October 10th, 2024 at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Grenada, Mississippi. I will miss his bright, vivacious spirit and gigantic smile for the rest of my life.
On behalf of my sisters and family, I want to thank everyone for being here today to honor the life of my incredible father, Frank Liberto.
For those here who do not know, I am Frank’s youngest daughter, and although I never went to Ole Miss I am most definitely his one and only rebel child, from a family meek and mild. He would say to me, “Sara….why can’t you just follow the rules and do what the man says??” I broke all of the rules and questioned everything the man said. My sweet daddy tried.
My father was an absolute shooting star of a man who loved his three daughters more than anything else in this world. And I feel like the luckiest girl in the entire Milky Way Galaxy to have had him as my daddy.
His smile went on for miles and lit up every room he walked into — he was always smiling. He brought fun and humor to almost every moment of his life. He loved people and he lived to make people laugh and smile. He most definitely got the cosmic memo that life is about love and having fun.
He was my father, teacher, travel guide, role model, and personal comedian. I looked at my father as if he was a rock star or a celebrity. He was larger than life and loved rock and roll music. He always had it playing and I’ll never forget calling the radio station just to request our Uncle John’s songs. He was so proud of his family and he absolutely loved being a Liberto.
As many of you know, in the Liberto family the power of love runs deep. In our family love prevails. He valued being in the Liberto/Marascalco family and being EYE-talian (as he would say) just as much as he valued his Catholic faith. He was a devout Catholic and never missed mass.
His eyes were brimming with wonder and he knew that the genius of God flowed through all things. Everything seen arises from the unseen and my father understood this. During the time I was obtaining my degree in Philosophy & Religion, he visited me on campus and we had a very rare but spiritually intimate conversation that I will cherish for the rest of my life. My father was a scientist who knew that a mysterious intelligence created this entire universe.
My father was a brilliant man. He was a thinker, and he instilled in me one of the greatest gifts of all: knowing how to think. My earliest memories in life were of him teaching me about the constellations, the planets in our solar system, and the vastness of outer space through his telescope. He was obsessed with the stars and night sky, he would say things to me like, “The stars go on and on forever and ever!” and “Always look up", “Always look to the stars!” The natural wonders of this world amazed my father and he was well-aware of the brilliance running through it all.
I’ll never forget going to his high school one day to sit in on his classroom and eat lunch with him, and thinking, “Wow — these kids are so lucky to have him as their science teacher.” He was in his element and on top of the world while teaching science. He was made for it. We were all rolling laughing as we learned from him. So many students that day told me how he was their favorite teacher and that they loved how crazy he was. He made learning so much fun.
I got to have him as my teacher for 40 years, not nearly as long as I would have liked. He knew I was too right-brained, so he made me do math equations on our 14-hour drives to Disney World and it was absolutely greuling. Disney World was his paradise. The man was on Cloud-9 at the Magic Kingdom. You know why? Because he was real-life-Mickey Mouse. His playful and pure heart found refuge in a place whose ethos was all about Magic.
My dad made life magical and like a playground. He carried his childlike spirit throughout his entire life. He took his daughters to Disney World every single summer, and oftentimes winter as well, for decades. We were so lucky. He surprised us with which Disney resort we would stay in (we stayed at all of them) and he made it a game which one of us could spot the Disney Ears water tower first as we entered Disney property. He made the most mundane moments so exciting.
We would go to the grocery store and my dad would dance down the aisles as he put groceries into the cart. He was always dancing.
He would so often visit me at school — every school I ever went to, from elementary and middle school to high school and college — he would spontaneously surprise me just to eat lunch with me that day. Anytime my name was called on the intercom I knew that my dad was in the office. And sure enough, there he would be, smiling so big with his visitor tag and so excited to surprise me.
He made me feel like a million bucks, which isn’t much money anymore but at the time it was. And speaking of — he watched his dollars all year long because at Christmas he went all out for his girls. My daddy loaded us up with more gifts and money than we needed. We couldn’t wait for his Christmas’, they were legendary. It only took one time saying that we liked or wanted something and it would be under his tree that December. He was completely in love with his daughters and wanted us to be happy.
Nothing could keep him away from us. He showed up all of the time, even on vacations. If he knew we were going to be somewhere, he showed up, and he didn’t care about an invitation. He loved loading us into his car and hitting the road for another cross-country vacation. He took us all over the country multiple times. The man absolutely loved to travel, but we did get tired of eating 99 cent whoppers from Burger King.
As his daughter, I have no shortage of memories and moments with him. From our weekly trips to the library to check out books, to our bicycle rides to do Spain Patrols, and him teaching me how to swim even though he was terrified of water, my mere 40 years of having him as a father were a gift that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
I want to close my thoughts with a hilarious memory involving my Jack Russell Terrier. As many of you know, my father had a fear of dogs, well, because he was bit a few times. But my Jack Russell, Bauer, loved my dad. I think because they had the same kind of energy. So, one weekend he came to visit me at my studio in Nashville and he sat down in a chair in my living room only for Bauer to jump straight into his lap, plant his paws on my dad’s chest, and proceeded to shower his face with kisses. My dad was yelling, “Sara! Help me, Sara! Help me!!!!” But this made Bauer even more excited. My dad was screaming as his worst nemesis covered his face with love. It was unforgettable and when Bauer died last year at the age of 17, he called me and got choked up while telling me how much he loved “crazy little Bauer”.
May my father’s soul soar in the galaxy that he always loved so dearly.
