‘A warrior and a fighter’
Husband remembers Bethel officer who died after cancer battle
Although the death of his wife has been devastating, Peter Andreotto said it brings him and his family comfort knowing that she’s watching over them.
“We’re all just trying to pick up the pieces of our life and try and put them back together as best we can, knowing that she’s still with us and encouraging us to go on,” he said about his wife of 22 years, Liberty Andreotto, who died Friday at the age of 43 following a several-yearlong battle with cancer.
A memorial service for the New Milford resident, former Bethel police officer and mother of two was held Tuesday afternoon in Florida, where she died four days earlier surrounded by family.
Peter Andreotto said his wife was a fierce and adventurous individual with a big heart.
“She was kind and caring, and wasn’t afraid to be momma bear when she needed to be,” he said. “She really cared about people — family especially.”
Peter Andreotto said he and his wife met as teenagers in Brookfield in the early 1990s.
“She lived like two houses down from me and we met at a bus stop — she was 15 and I was 16,” he said.
In college, Peter Andreotto said his wife’s plan of becoming a history teacher soon changed.
“She spent a summer with her aunt, Anita, and they would always watch the show, and she fell in love with police work,” he said.
After that, he said, she transferred from Western Connecticut State University to Naugatuck Valley Community College, where she earned an associate’s degree in criminal justice.
After working as a civilian dispatcher for two years, she attended the police academy and became a Bethel police officer in 2001. In 2003, she transferred to the department’s records division, where she served as supervisor for several years.
Peter Andreotto said his wife was “very passionate” and loved the work she did as a cop.
“She always took her tasks seriously. She was a perfectionist and a planner — she always had a plan and executed it pretty flawlessly when things had to get done,” he said.
In 2005 — a year after the birth of her first child, Ashley — Andreotto decided to leave the police force to focus on raising a family.
“She wanted to watch her take her first steps and didn’t want to miss all that,” her husband said. “She absolutely loved her career — and there’s no doubt in my mind she would have risen in the ranks if she had stayed — but family was really important to her and she decided to take a different path.”
In 2017 — 10 years after the birth of their son, Aidan — Peter Andreotto said his wife was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic melanoma.
“Most people don’t live past 18 months with this, but she was a warrior and a fighter and was not going to let cancer get in the way of her trying to raise her kids and be there for them,” he said.
Peter Andreotto said his wife had always been the type of person who didn’t want to miss anything, and that intensified following her diagnosis.
“She went to everything she could possibly get to — all our daughter’s dance recitals and performances and all our son’s baseball games and practices,” he said.
Peter Andreotto said his wife got to see their daughter play the role of the Snow Queen in the Nutcracker not long before she died, and that “gave her a lot of joy.”
“About two weeks before she passed, she said to me, ‘I really want Ashley to get to that role and I want to be able to see her dance that,’ and she did — she absolutely did,” he said.
Peter Andreotto said their kids are both hurt, but doing the best they can to cope with the loss of their mother.
“It’s been devastating to lose their mother so young, but they know she’s looking over them,” he said.
Peter Andreotto said they had started making plans for hospice care in Connecticut but, at the request of his wife, flew down to Florida last month to be with family during her final days.
“She really wanted to be with her family, so we took a last-minute flight down there and spent one last Christmas together as a family — as many of them that could make it,” he said.
After Christmas, he said, her health really started to decline.
Peter Andreotto said his wife passed away, “surrounded by the love of her family at her mother’s home,” two hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
“Down here in Florida, there were fireworks going off all around, and it was kind of amazing to see that display and know that she’s looking down on us from Heaven,” he said.