Constantine G. Hadjidakis

My dad, Constantine George Hadjidakis, died last Friday evening in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He almost made it to 98. He led a very full life seeing the worst of humans and the best. Dad was born into a strong middle class family in Xania, Crete, Greece. Sadly, during WW2, his teen years were miserable under the boot heel of the invading nazis, spending nine months in a nazi prison with his father, my grandfather, sent to the Austrian salt mines. Their crime? Listening to the BBC.

After the war his mother, my grandmother, put him on a boat to the US with a hundred dollars in his pocket. From NYC, he made his way somehow to Albuquerque to a distant uncle who helped him get settled. He enrolled in The University Of New Mexico as an engineering student. He didn't speak a lick of English but his math skills were top notch and in the beginning math was his language. While in school he met my mom on a bus to Santa Fe. They fell in love and after receiving his BS, they married (that's a whole 'nuther story for another day), then grad school for a Masters degree. He got a job with the Corps Of Engineers, which took us to Mississippi in 1959, where we lived for two years. Dad then got a job with NASA in Huntsville in 1961 and helped put man on the moon. He would eventually get promoted to Washington DC and then retired.

That wasn't the end, though. He and mom moved back to New Mexico where dad worked for the state and mom continued as an RN. Many of the bridges built on the roadways and interstates in Albuquerque were his designs. If you are ever there and you find yourself on a blue bridge, that's his. Dad was often accused of picking blue in honor of Greece but he said it wasn't true, though he did have a certain look in his eye when he said it, haha!

He and mom finally retired, did some good traveling and enjoyed life. Old age really hit my mom, and my dad, with some help from me, took as good of care as he could. After mom died at the beginning of the pandemic, he was very alone with his grief as I couldn't travel because of covid restrictions. When I was finally able to be there, I had to move dad from independent living to assisted care, where he died Friday.

Dad was not easy his last few years to deal with. But his aides did a splendid job and he would introduce them to me as his friends. All of them, including his hospice nurse, told me that he had really touched them and we've been crying since. I'm eternally happy I was here for his end, even though I didn't know that's what this trip was all about. I held his hand, told him I loved him and that he didn't have to worry and could go in peace. He then opened his eyes wide, looked straight in my eye and was then gone.

I will miss him much more than I ever realized. May my dad Rest In Peace.

Services will be held on Thursday, September 12, 2024, at 10:00 am at FRENCH-Wyoming. He will be laid to rest with his wife, Lola, at Santa Fe National Cemetery.