METHUEN -- The first time Larry Giordano witnessed death was when he was about 18 years old.

The former foster kid from Everett had joined the U.S. Air Force at 17. His job was to rescue plane crash victims. This time, he and his crew were too late, and the deceased victim was smoldering in the cockpit. At the age of 19, Giordano was a rescue crew chief responsible for a team of responders and a fire truck worth $30 million. He thought of God constantly.

"When the bell went off, and they said there's a plane approaching or landing gear went down and things like that, I always blessed myself," said Giordano, now 80. "I always said, 'God, watch over me and my crew.'"

When he returned to civilian life, he would have nightmares so vivid that he would wake up screaming. His wife Eileen was by his side and has remained there for the last 58 years.

"The secret is compromise," Larry said.

His time in the Air Force also gave him his lifelong love of karate. He would move the fire trucks out of the station two nights a week so he could practice. In 1968, he co-founded the Methuen Karate Association. Giordano, who still teaches there, is the last surviving founder.

"We bow to the masters, to all of the masters who came before," he said.

He is now a 10th-degree black belt, the highest rank possible, but he said "rank doesn't mean anything" to him. Inside his office is a sign that reads: "Karate doesn't owe me anything. I owe everything to karate."

The dojo is an extension of St. Lucy Parish, where he serves as a eucharistic minister and member of the parish council. He taught his first karate class in the church basement. Since then, he has taught countless parishioners and their children. Both the parish and the dojo teach the same lessons about respect and discipline. Larry taught karate and Sunday school to Kevin Bihl, who is now a black belt and a teacher at Methuen Karate Association.

"He's family to me," Bihl said.

Ashley Hussey learned karate from Larry, and her nine-year-old son John now does the same.

"He's had a big impact, especially with me being an only child," she said. "He showed me how to have a lot of patience, a lot of respect."

The walls of the dojo are lined with framed newspaper clippings from throughout Larry's eventful life. Headlines include "Making Use of an Unhappy Childhood" and "Who's Who in Kyokushin Karate." There is an autographed photo of Chuck Norris in the lobby.

Inside the studio, Giordano shows stances to a small army of gi-wearing children.

"All these students, you see, are my kids," he said. "They're like my real kids."

The Giordanos have three children and four grandchildren of their own. While raising them, Eileen would also help out at the dojo.

"We've met a lot of wonderful people," she said. "And when people say all these negative stories about what society is like now, I always have to say, 'Well, I don't see that.' We see a lot of good families who are working hard."

Eileen, 81, also serves as a lector at St. Lucy's. For decades of service to their longtime parish, the Giordanos were two of 101 people who received the Cheverus Award last year. The annual award, named after Boston's first bishop, goes to people who have faithfully and humbly dedicated their lives to their parishes.

"I feel like we just did what we were supposed to do," Eileen said. "Don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful honor, but we were just living the way I believe God asked us to do."

"We do whatever we can for the Church," Larry said.

In many ways, the Methuen Karate Association is an extension of that service. Larry considers his most important lessons to be that karate is not for use in the schoolyard and that his students should respect their parents. When they get good marks in school, he tells them to bring in the graded paper, and he'll give them a dollar in return. He counsels the kids when they're misbehaving or being bullied.

"Sometimes I used to joke, 'I always wanted to be a priest because I wanted to listen to people's confession,'" he said. "Now I listen to them anyway."

When his students grow up, he gets invited to their weddings. Every June, he teaches a class on Salisbury Beach and hosts a cookout for all the students' families. Everyone brings a dish. Each Christmas, Larry invites his black-belt students for a Chinese dinner.

"God has been more than good to us, so we have to continue to give back," Eileen said. "We're both in our 80s, and we're both still doing lots of wonderful things that we can give back to the community."

Eileen has lived on the same street in Methuen for her entire life. In fact, the street is named after her family. Her grandfather Clementi, an Italian immigrant, settled in Methuen on the land that is now home to the Methuen Karate Association. The dojo used to be a barn on Eileen's family's property. Eileen grew up in a house with 10 kids and shared a bed with three of her sisters. She went to work in a clothing factory in Lawrence just after her 16th birthday.

Before the current St. Lucy Parish was established, Eileen would attend Masses held at a local restaurant.

"And so St. Lucy's Parish was formed, and that's been my lifelong home," she said.

Larry was born in Brighton and grew up in a foster home in Everett. The home was a "revolving door" of foster children, he recalled. There would usually be seven or eight kids in the house at once.

"It wasn't easy, because everybody had you labeled back then," Larry said. "They used to call you 'ward of the state.'"

"Ward of the State" became the title of his childhood memoirs, published in 2019. His foster mother, Helene Giordano, took him on a mile-long walk to Mass every Sunday. He later changed his last name to hers in gratitude.

"Miss Giordano was wonderful," he said, adding, "She treated me as a son."

Larry liked to fight as a kid, and was part of a gang in Everett called the Swan Street Rats. Nowadays, he tells his students that karate isn't all about fighting. He left the Air Force at 21, and met Eileen at a nightclub in Malden called the Flamingo. The Flamingo was a "telephone lounge" where patrons could call each other from their tables. He called Eileen's table and asked, "That lovely lady in the red dress, does she want to dance?"

Eileen worked for the Internal Revenue Service, Elder Services of the Merrimack Valley, and an employment program for older workers. Larry was a Methuen police officer for 14 years and a Massachusetts state representative for a decade. He was the state Commissioner of Public Safety and spent 14 years on the Methuen City Council. He is currently Grand Knight of the Methuen Knights of Columbus. He and Eileen founded the nonprofit Foster Kids of the Merrimack Valley in 2005.

Larry had "a tough spell" during the pandemic, which inspired him to go to daily Mass to thank God for his survival. He had cancer in his bladder and prostate, and suffered a massive heart attack. While in a coma, he heard a voice say "Larry, do you want to come with us, or do you want to go home?"

He said he wanted to go home.