Theodoros Derveniotis (1922-2004)

It's one year to the day.
This memorial post is not a grieving post.
I was grieving for my father just before he died:he was a fighter all his years,his very life shaped by his WWII experience when he joined the resistance at a very young age.
But the illness was the one enemy he could not defeat.
But apart from the loss, I couldn't feel sorry: he made such a good use of his life that the end found him triumphant, with no loose ends, debts unpaid, things not done and challenges not met.
The last adversary he fought, was the same people who had become rich from his work and suddenly one day decided they didn't need him anymore:The Greek Record Companies (did I mention he was a musician?) had entered a new phase,almost all of them merging with some big international label. Quick and enormous profits were needed to meet the directives set by the Mother Company, which resulted to the mass production of assembly-made "pop idols".
Not the way my dad functioned, needless to say.
Nevertheless, he continued to sell big numbers.The last record he made, became gold in very short time-it proved to be his last, though: the decision was made, and a whole generation of song creators found the doors slammed shut, my father included.
But he had the last word:
Some years before the illness overcame him, the Greek music magazine "Difono" organized a concert to honor his work: Up to the last day before the concert,everyone was nervous: what if it was true that this kind of songs were truly out of fashion-"untrendy" and forgotten?
A huge theater jam-packed and ecstatic proved they weren't.




That's how I want everyone to remember my dad: proud and uncompromising, fighting against impossible odds for what he knew was the right thing-and always in the end

emerging

triumphant.