Dad. An Obit.

A couple of people asked me if dad had an obit and if they could read it. Romanians don’t write obits, at least not in the same fashion as they do here, in The States. The most they do is a death announcement which is pretty much a matter-of-fact statement that a person has passed with brief information about the time and the place of their wake and funeral. We didn’t publish a death announcement for my dad because our funeral home strongly advised us that a Facebook announcement would be much more effective than any newspaper announcement because “no one reads the paper nowadays.” So, we didn’t write one. 

But I thought of writing an obit, of sorts, myself, for those of you who might be interested in who the man was. Here it goes. 

Corneliu Afloarei (“Baby”), age 70, of Iasi, Romania, passed away on November 22, 2022. 

Baby was born on July 19, 1952 in Targu Neamt, Neamt County, Romania. He was the second and youngest child of Sterian (a construction engineer) and Ioana (a registered nurse). Due to the nature of his father’s occupation, he spent his early childhood living in several counties of Romania, as his father was assigned to various construction projects. He spent time mostly in the Neamt and Suceava Counties, in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains. His life-long love of the mountains started during those early days. 

When he was in middle school, the family relocated to Iasi - the largest city in the province of Romanian Moldova and today the second-largest city in Romania. Mostly known for being a university center, Iasi offered opportunities for good education and a slower-paced, less industrialized city. Baby attended the Vasile Alecsandri high-school where he excelled in writing, history, and sports. Being extremely competitive, he played soccer and track during his high-school years. 

After a failed attempt at getting into law school because of the unfair disqualification of his entrance paper (due to an ink blotch), he turned to his other passion: animals. He was admitted to the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine “Ion Ionescu de la Brad”, the Faculty of Food and Animal Sciences in Iasi. He graduated in 1979. 

In 1973, he married Anișoara, also of Iasi, who he met a couple of years prior on a train headed to the beach city of Constanta. She was to be the love of his life, his soulmate and partner for almost 49 years. 

During college, he worked as a music DJ in dance clubs, as a family photographer, and as a construction handyman, to support his small family while going to college full time. His first daughter was born in 1975 and his youngest was born in 1978 - during his college years. 

After graduating college, between 1979 and 1990, he worked on various government-owned farms in the counties of Galati and Iasi, managing chicken, cow, or pig farms or supervising meat production in slaughterhouses and meat producing plants. He always believed in keeping the animals happy and healthy and in treating them with dignity and compassion, even if they were meant for human consumption. These were hard times, where food, especially meat, was severely regulated by the Communist government. On a backdrop of penury and constant lack of food for the larger population, he found ways to keep his family and those close to them fed. During those days he used to say “if you have food, you have everything” as food was in such great demand and ever shorter supply. He worked hard, under the hard conditions of an overbearing and restrictive government, in the cold of the long Romanian winters, to ensure his bonuses (paid in food rewards rather than money) were paid on time. He shared those bonuses with anyone that needed to feed their family. 

In 1990, after the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, he changed careers and became the owner and CEO of his own company, Total Gaz. Total Gaz provided heating boilers for small businesses - an industry that was just then created, after Romanians found new ways to stop being dependent on the Government’s hot water and heating services and became more independent. He worked for Total Gaz until his partial retirement in 1999 when he also sold his share in the business. After that, he worked as a consultant for the Casa Design, SRL, a company similar to the one he sold that provides heating systems to residential customers. He completely retired in 2017, at the age of 65. 

Although his Christian name was Corneliu, virtually everyone who ever met him called him “Baby” - a moniker that his mother gave him in his early childhood years and which stuck. There are many people out there who never knew his real name. 

Baby will be remembered by everyone he met and helped for his incredible heart and generosity. He always helped everyone who needed help, and he always turned a sympathetic ear towards everyone’s challenges. He loved people, in general, and his family in particular. He supported his children in every endeavor they attempted, encouraged them and constantly cheered them on to achieve more, to reach for higher goals. In losing him, his family lost their patriarch, their center, their rock, their North Star. 

Second only to his big heart was his abundant sense of humor. Although he could be a stern and ruthless businessman (at only about 5’5”, the man could intimidate just about anyone in a well-pressed suit), he was also the heart of every party and the clown of every gathering. Everyone that ever met him privately will remember him with a smile on their faces and they will recount the many jokes he told at parties and the many pranks he played. 

He was notorious for his parties. Even in the darker days of Communism, when life was hard and happy moments were few and far between, he always took the time to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, or milestones, like his children getting into a new school, or buying a car, or even buying a house appliance. He loved to cook and his multiple-course dinners that started at 2PM and lasted way into the night will remain unforgettable to anyone who participated. His parties were always about savoring good eats and drinks, laughing so hard your stomach would hurt, dancing while listening to “good music” and forgetting about the challenges of life. They were always a reprieve from a harsh reality and a journey into happy times. 

He was somewhat of a hedonist when it came to food and drinking - everything had to be in excess. For years, he made his own wine, various specialties of smoked meats, sushi, and together with his wife, he cooked the most elaborate dinners. He was the chef-in-charge and Anișoara was his right-hand sous-chef. The ideas for the dinners, the decorations and table settings, the decorating of the house for The Holidays were all his ideas and orchestration. 

He loved freedom in its purest form. Again, during the dark days of Communism, even with the risk of getting caught and thrown in jail for destabilizing The Regime, he instilled the love of freedom and of America, in particular, (the “only country in the world,” he used to say, “with true freedom and respect for the individual”) into his children. He raised them to, one day, be citizens, “and not just tourists”, of the Free World and both his daughters now live in the US and Canada. 

One of the highlights of his adult life was coming to America and visiting New York City - the “ultimate American experience”, he used to say. His visit to Ellis Island, the cradle of American immigration of sorts, was deeply emotional and moved him to his core. It was a dream come true. 

Besides photography, he also loved music. He never took English in school, but he spoke conversational-level English “just from listening to The Beatles”, he used to say. His favorite band was The Beatles, but he instilled a deep passion for all ‘60’s British and American music into his children - The Rolling Stones, CCR, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin were among his favorites. 

He was a Renaissance man - he used to tell his children that a “well-rounded person never walks into a room full of people without being able to be fluent in whatever the topic of discussion is in that room: whether politics, sports, music, money, family, literature, history - you need to be able to hold your own and never be at a loss for words and devoid of your own opinions.” He was a gifted conversationalist and he shared advice freely with anyone who would listen. He leaves behind an impressive collection of books and he always encouraged his children to be avid readers. 

He loved animals, especially cats and dogs. As a child, he practically collected stray dogs and cats and his parents never knew what they would come home to every day because he would shelter yet another creature, giving them a bath and feeding them whatever leftovers he could find. 

Taking after his mother, he also had a green thumb - his house and garden are filled with plants and flowers that always look healthy and full of life, in any season. 

Baby was born with a hereditary condition which he inherited from his father, called Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH). FH causes early onset of cardio-vascular disease and strokes. He started seeing signs of his arteries being blocked with excess cholesterol which caused his heart disease and his first minor strokes in his 40’s. Eventually, he died of a number of massive strokes which lead to cardiac arrest. His death was very similar to that of his father, who also died of multiple strokes at the early age of 65. In a strange twist of fate, his wife also has the same condition and his daughters and one of his grandsons also inherited it. 

He was preceded in death by his parents, Sterian and Ioana, and by his parents-in-law, Constantin and Ileana. He is survived by his loving wife of 49 years, Anișoara, his only sister, Rodica Todică, his two daughters, Alina Wilson (Aaron Kuehn) and Andreea Arghire (Gabriel), his two grandsons (Patrick - 14, and Kevin - 11), and many other cousins, and second- and third- nieces and nephews. 

For those of you who knew him and who might feel so inclined, if you want to donate anything in his name, you can donate food to anyone in need, or give any kind of help to homeless pets. He would have loved that. Sharing food was the best gift he could give to humans and animals alike, the surest and purest way he could show his love.  

Also, if you want to aid with creating awareness for FH, you can also support The Family Heart Foundation (https://familyheart.org/donate) who dedicates their efforts to educating individuals and medical professionals alike about the severity of FH, if left untreated.  

Thank you to all of you who have been by our family’s side since his passing. It means a lot more than I can put into words.