Attorney Christopher Cerami's world was shaken to the core in January 2018 when his grandfather tragically died in a fire in his Plainview, Long Island, home, but the 31-year-old Bridgeport-based lawyer said part of the healing process has been remembering that Robert Thomas Rohde was always his greatest cheerleader and is an ongoing inspiration.

“I had the full range of grief-related issues swoop into my life,” Cerami said, recalling the aftermath of his grandfather's untimely passing. “It was two months of funk, of not feeling myself. The drive I had was wiped out and suddenly—I did not know what to do with myself. I thought I was falling apart. I'd do what I needed to do with my current clients and then go home and stare at the walls.”

But Cerami, a former New Haven solo practitioner and new associate at Bridgeport's Willinger, Willinger & Bucci, took solace in remembering his grandfather's own words and advice. “He would not want me to continue to beat myself up,” he said. “He always told me to never give up, no matter what the situation. He would tell me that having self-pity was unacceptable and to pick myself up and go forward.”

Cerami said dealing with grief involves remembering the good times, like when he passed the bar in 2013, soon after graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Law. During a family celebration, Rohde revealed he was carrying with him a poem Cerami had written while in elementary school, about his dream of becoming an attorney.

Attorney Christopher Cerami and his grandfather, Robert Thomas Rohde, after Cerami was sworn in as a member of the Connecticut bar. (Courtesy photo)

Cerami's grandfather kept almost every letter, card or poem his grandson had written, in fact. “He saved that letter and just pulled out the poem and read it,” Cerami recalled. “He was crying, for a lack of a better term. My passing the bar meant so much to him. It might have been a  dream I forgot about, but he never did.”

While working as a solo in New Haven, Cerami said the sudden death of the man with whom he'd had hours of conversations at a time on topics ranging from history to politics and law, affected his new job. For a period, he did not take on new clients. But he said it was his grandfather's word of encouragement, his strength, humor and never-give-up attitude that helped him through the grief.

A member of the Marine Corps during the Korean War, Rohde was retired as a superintendent of a bus company in Queens, New York. While his grandfather never went to college, Cerami recalled he was a voracious reader.

“His whole house was a roving library,” said Cerami, who grew up in Farmingdale, Long Island, a few exits away from his grandparents. Cerami said his grandfather's shelves and tables were filled with hundreds of books, which became the basis for many conversations and a special bond that began when Cerami was 2.

“Talking was our thing,” Cerami said. “I had three brothers who were into sports, but I was never a sports guy. My grandfather talked about politics and history with me, you name it. We'd go to the bottom of his garage, and he'd just sit and talk about whatever he was reading. He'd talk about a current event and would put it in historical context.”

After Cerami passed the Connecticut bar, his grandfather would proudly hand out his grandson's business cards to anyone he could think of. “I gave him this big stack of business cards,” Cerami remembered. “And, he was so proud that he'd hand them out in the off-chance they'd need legal help in Connecticut. He gave it to the plumber, the electrician, anyone he could think of.”

Cerami said he will always remember and take with him the biggest advice his grandfather ever game him: “Take self-inventory,” he would say, Cerami recalled. “Look into who you are, what you aren't doing and what you should be doing.”