‘He loved life:’ COVID victim fulfilled many dreams in his lifetime

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Victor Rapazzini’s death last year from COVID-19 stunned those who knew him best.

He died alone on the evening of May 4, 2020, at a Las Vegas hospital, following a monthlong battle with the respiratory disease. He was 83.

But before he had fallen sick, Rapazzini showed no signs of slowing down as he embarked on his 13th year as an educator for the Clark County School District.

In the mornings before school, he would turn to his wife in bed, and with his signature smile stretched across his face, he would say, “Today is a great day to be above the ground.”

Laughing, his wife, Cynthia, said in an interview this month, “I couldn’t get him to retire.”

And had he not fallen victim to the novel coronavirus, she added, “he would be at school with his students right now.”

At the time of his death, Victor Rapazzini was working with students with special needs at Sawyer Middle School.

‘He loved life’

Victor Rapazzini was born and raised in San Jose, California.

He was a man of purpose with many interests and passions, and as such, he did not have one true calling.

Instead, he lived a full and happy life, not bound to any one career or job.

In his lifetime, according to his wife, he also had been an ordained minister, a winery owner, an insurance agent and a boxer. In the early 1980s, following his college boxing career, he trained boxers Eddie Wright and Don Coates.

“He loved life,” Cynthia Rapazzini said. “He took advantage of every single day.”

Cynthia Rapazzini, 65, met her husband in 1977 in San Francisco. He was nearly 20 years her senior, already a father of three and married once, but Cynthia Rapazzini didn’t care.

She was drawn to his big, blue eyes and his childlike laughter. They were together from 1981 until his death last year, and they had one son together.

“He was my best friend,” Cynthia Rapazzini said. “This was truly a once in a lifetime love. I really believe that.”

Together they overcame many challenges, including the deaths of Victor Rapazzini’s two daughters, Erica and Andrea.

“We survived a lot together. He really changed my life,” Cynthia Rapazzini said. “I woudn’t be who I am now had he not been in my life.”

Moving on

The couple moved from Northern California to Las Vegas in 1996. Victor Rapazzini worked closely with a builder to give his wife the perfect home in the western valley, where they raised their son, Adrian.

Today, Cynthia Rapazzini still lives in the two-story house that “holds so many of their memories.”

Many of her husband’s belongings and photos have gone untouched in the year since his death.

But for months, Cynthia Rapazzini said, she couldn’t bear to look at his pictures, to be reminded of what she and her son had lost: their best friend and biggest support system.

Only in recent months has she been able to face her husband’s photos.

Her favorite now sits on her nightstand, and she talks to the photo when she wakes up and before she goes to sleep.

“I don’t know what moving on means,” she said. “I’m just doing the things that I have to do. Is there any kind of enjoyment or happiness or pleasure in my life right now? No, absolutely not. But maybe one day.”

In the meantime, both she and her son have started talking with a therapist.

“We had a good life,” Cynthia Rapazzini said. “And I’m trying to focus on that.”

In addition to his wife and their son, Victor Rapazzini leaves behind his son, Dominic, from a previous marriage.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.