Riccardo Marquez Gasparini

In Memory of Riccardo Gasparini
By Christina Mayo

Riccardo loved his strawberry milkshakes. Shake Shack was his favorite. But he also loved the shakes at UM Canes baseball games. He would even miss innings standing in line for one of those.

He was purely passionate about so many things. He loved inventing and was especially driven by his Green Luggage, which, as a portable energy device, kept my mom alive one more day in hospice when the power went out at her home.

He loved music and he travelled long distances to see his rock concerts. He knew all the words to all the songs. He saw The Rolling Stones all over Europe and the U.S. He loved U2, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, The Who and Roger Daltrey, Elton John, Bowie, Yes, Pearl Jam, and Clapton. I even dragged him to a Billy Joel concert. He loved it.

Riccardo loved movies and especially those about space. He could watch the original Star Trek TV shows with Captain Kirk over and over again. He laughed so much at British comedy shows. I think he learned a lot of English watching them.

He knew so many languages and that made travelling with Riccardo amazing, though he hated to fly. He never worried about figuring out trains though. Once, we discovered I had made a mistake for the day to pick up a rental car in a tiny Italian town. Turns out it was Ferragosto and “even the Pope takes a holiday this day, Christina,” he said. Our reservation had been for the day before.

But Riccardo hopped us off one train and we hurried through the station to catch a different one to the airport. He knew, correctly, that there would be rental cars there. I can still see him carrying both our rolling bags up all those old Italian station stairs. He was so strong.

He told me stories of serving with the United Nations Blue Helmets, the military peacekeepers, when he was in his 20s. He was deployed to Beruit, and later Somalia and other dangerous places. He was very proud to help, but also agonized over war.

He lost his mother when he was 16 after she had been sick for four years. He lost his father two years later, and was an orphan right after his 18th birthday. But he persevered. This despite struggling with Tourette’s Syndrome since the age of six. But it made him brilliant and he refused to take medication for it. He thought fast and could talk about anything. He remembered everything he learned. Except for directions in Miami. He did love his Garmin.

He got his Master’s and PhD degrees at FIU’s College of Engineering. It was one of his happiest, and most humble, days when he received that PhD. It was a challenge he set for himself and he did it, at age 55. He was, I believe, the only person receiving a PhD in Mechanical Engineering that day. The entire audience cheered for him.
Riccardo was also incredibly proud to become an American Citizen in 2018. Every morning at Starbucks he would have his coffee and lemon loaf, or a croissant, and read the U.S. and global news on his iPad. He always wanted to know what was happening. He read the news in other languages too.

He volunteered to grill at every backyard party and he was great at it. He loved to swim and was on the swim team in high school. He also played in a band in school and he would have loved to be a rocker up on stage like Mick Jagger, who he could imitate perfectly, by the way. He studied classical guitar at a conservatory and could play almost any song you asked.

As a Professional Engineer with his own company he loved a construction puzzle. Once, there was a fire escape behind a Lincoln Road building that had a jazz club upstairs. No one else could figure out how to create a new escape because the space between buildings was so tight. But Riccardo designed something new, and the Miami Beach inspectors were thrilled. It passed.

He was dedicated to construction. One time, he got up before dawn to test the concrete in 55 trucks for the foundation being poured at a popular hotel being built. He is the engineer of record for many South Florida buildings. He ran himself ragged trying to fix older ones, and helping the people who needed him for their renovations.

He loved watching Miami Heat basketball and Italian soccer. He loved brunch and Eggs Benedict, and he loved his Dewar’s White Label. He loved parties, listening to local bands at local dive bars, and he loved to laugh and dance.

He loved growing up in Modena, Italy and Caracas, Venezuela. He missed his parents profoundly and told me many stories of his few years with them.

Riccardo loved to ski and he always went for the black diamond runs. He loved the cold and the snow, and the mountains near where he grew up, and also in the U.S. though they weren’t nearly tall enough.

He loved Fairchild Garden and even wanted to suggest some new designs for watering plants. We walked there a lot and went to so many festivals. He loved conch fritters at the Native Conch food truck, and risotto at Trattoria Luna.

There’s a lot of the word love here, because Riccardo did love a lot. He loved his sons Ruben and Carlo fiercely, and proudly, as they grew into men. He carried his son Alberto (lives in Spain) and his brother Carlos ( lives in Chile) in his heart at all times. He loved my children. And me.

Riccardo was a Renaissance man—curious and smart, honorable and brave, good and true. He truly “shone like the sun,” the lyrics to one of his favorite Pink Floyd songs. And he will continue to live on in all our hearts.


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