Pasquale Di Meglio

Pasquale Di Meglio, age 79, passed away peacefully at home on February 23, 2026, after valiantly battling kidney cancer. Although Pasquale was a proud U.S. citizen, who helped others realize the American dream, he never forgot his birthplace and childhood home in Italy. Born to Francesca Mattera and Giovanni Battista Di Meglio on April 27, 1946, in Buonopane, Ischia, an island that is part of Naples, he was beloved from the start.

His golden, curly hair made him a ringer for San Giovanni Battista, and he was paraded around the piazza draped in the townspeople’s jewels every June 24, the saint’s feast day. His piercing blue eyes and dimples made him a magnet for the moms, who ran their fingers through his hair in the hopes their children would catch a piece of his charm. As a young man, he snuck out of school to play soccer in that same piazza and fondly recalled those childhood memories as among the best of his life despite getting in trouble with the priests, who were his teachers. Ischia was his playground, especially the woods of Buceto, which were his paradise, until 1960, when the family immigrated to the United States and landed in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Once in the United States, at 13 years old, he attended school and went to work at the A&P supermarket, D&G Landscaping, which was his brother’s business, Jerry’s Pizzeria, and the factory. After jumping the fence at Fort Lee High School and becoming the first in the family to graduate, he launched his own landscaping company, D&D Landscaping, which has been kicking grass for more than 50 years - and will outlive him. His work was his art, his heart, his identity, so he would not have it any other way..

In 1978, he married Regina Margherita Di Costanzo, and they began a family almost immediately. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, the love of his life, Regina, their daughter Francesca and her husband Antonio and their children Vincenzo “Enzo” and Pasquale, their son John Battista, his wife Jaci and their children Maria and Pasquale “Alex,” their daughter Rosaria Concetta and her dog Max and the rest of her menagerie, his sisters, nieces, nephews, their children, and cousins.

While his relatives had to carry him recently, he had carried all of us previously. And he held - and squeezed - the hands of all who saw him - both literally and figuratively - until his last breath. His legacy is the special way he connected with his family - through good times and bad. Now, the family must carry on without him. But they are committed to keeping his spirit alive in every meal they share, every toast they make, every bit of soil they turn, and every plant they grow.