The Journey

            In one of Louis L’Amour’s Books, he writes, “Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty, but learn to be happy alone. Rely upon your own energies and so not wait for, or depend on other people.”

     

            It’s ironic that one of my father’s favorite authors would sum up how I’ve lived my life. Often times, I’ve looked to surround myself with people stronger, richer, more secure and more powerful than myself, but when the friendships fail or fade away, I have always been happy alone. Like my grandparents, I have taken what life has thrown in the path and risen to the occasion. The difference is that they and my parents have had someone to walk with them every step of the way for a very long time. Perhaps I’ll find someone to impress with a stuffed bear or just casually sit and eat pints of ice cream or someone who’ll see their soul reflected back in my eyes. But even if I don’t, my father, and his parents before him, have shown me that all of that exists.  



     



                   Me, the little big man and the object of our affection without the white bear.





     

             The irony of this letter writing journey has not been lost on me. My father’s correspondence has not only given me an insight into the man he was and is, but also brought me closer to the person I’ve for so long held at a distance. This little big man who could make me tremble with fear and who I’ve long striven to please has become, at last, a fully realized person. It’s never too late to learn lessons and discovery can happen at any point in life. But most of all, it is never too late to say thank you. The love in the house I grew up in is not just within its walls and floorboards; it’s in the people who helped make it a home. And when I look at it from the outside, I don’t just see a house – I see all of them.

     

            A Thanksgiving prayer I wrote last year: God bless this house and all its inhabitants at home and away and those family members with us in spirit. Amen.

The Man Downstairs

            My father is the youngest of three boys, in reality though; he’s the youngest of five. My grandparents had two others, who died— a fact I learned through the relative grapevine. The names and situations of the children in between were never shared and it was something that was whispered in little detail except both were infants. Dominic was the eldest, followed by Ralph and then my father. I’d heard that, since Ralph’s birthday was so close to Valentine’s Day, that he was going to be called Valentino. It’s probably safe to assume that everyone involved is happy that never came to pass.

 



     

                                  The Tellas: the little big man, Alfred, Jr. is front and center.





     
           Despite my Uncle Dom living with my grandparents and then remaining downstairs long after they passed away, the man, like his father before him was also a mystery to me. This is I knew: he smoked heavily, was very loud, was the only Italian I knew to not like cheese, seemed to have no direction in life and hardly ever carried on a conversation with me. He was as much an enigma to me as my father and grandfather. What is it about the men in my family? Are we all destined to be puzzles that take years to solve?

     

            There must have been a deep bond between my father and his brother and over the years, I caught snippets of that relationship. To me, my father was the little big man and Dom seemed to set great store by what my father said and did for him. How much my grandfather and uncle relied on him was obvious is so many ways. I think I inherited that take charge attitude from my dad and as much as I wanted to be different from him, as I get older, I’m not too proud to admit that I’m grateful for being so similar to him.

     

            On my visits home, my uncle hardly spoke to me. At times, I wondered if he thought I was my brother. I’d say a quick hello and then he’d disappear into his flat. I always thought smoking would be the death of him, but for reasons I’m not sure, his pack a day habit was suddenly gone one day. It was to be something none of us could have imagined that would end his life.

     

            I don’t know how to write this heartbreak as I knew Dom was going to die on July 27, 2006 almost to the hour. I knew because I let them remove all the life support. Dom appointed me his health care agent, which part of the form states, “If I should have an incurable or irreversible condition that will cause my death, or am in a state of permanent unconsciousness from which, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty there can be no recovery, it is my desire that my life not be artificially prolonged.”

     

            After putting them off for two weeks while Dom was in the V.A. Hospital, the doctors convinced me that they were keeping him alive artificially. I wanted to insist that they let him wake up. But then what? What could I say to him? The tubes are out, you can’t breathe and you’re going to die. I’m sorry? I had no choice. They didn’t know why he was extruding fluid through his skin. It looked like he was moving. They said he passed away of myeofibrosis (replacement of the bone marrow by fibrous tissue) I broke down like I never knew I could. May God forgive me. Better still, Dom forgive me.

     

            My father called me in the days leading up to his brother’s passing and I have never heard such sadness in his voice. He told me to not fly home for the service and as I have come to despise Catholic wakes and funerals, I did not argue. Instead, I found a small chapel on the campus of the university where I was working at the time and at the exact moment of his funeral; I went in and paid my respects.

     

            In all my years, I don’t think I can ever recall seeing my father cry – and perhaps that’s why I do not let the tears flow either. If they begin, can they stop? Is there release from all the pain and sorrow? Does it make you weaker or stronger? When you have no choice, is it easier to let someone you love go? With my uncle’s passing, the house my father loves so much has shifted but yet he gives it all the love that his parents instilled in him. If I can find anything to love with so much passion, I will count myself lucky.

     

            Since my brother, Dom passed, it no longer feels like a single family home. We now have tenants living in the first floor.

Heading Home

            The first time I came home from California was in November of 1990. It was to be only one of three times over the past 19 years that I would travel back to Boston in the winter because the days got shorter and winter’s full unpredictable force could arrive any second. Through all the snow shoveling and wretched humid summers of my childhood, I could never imagine myself living on the east coast. The west held a fascination for me for as long as I can remember. What was out there for me was and in some ways still, remains a mystery. Often times I sit and think where my life would have taken me had my grandmother lived to see me grow up. Would I have had the courage to pack up and move? The answer is one that is hard to decipher. Wherever my life has taken me, I have made a family of misfits like myself. Some have come and gone, but a few remain and those are the people that I cherish above everything else.

     

            I was discharged in May 1955 and it was one of the loneliness days of my life. After twenty-three months, basic training, school, maneuvers, being dead to the world, all the men became a family. Now it was over. On a clear morning, several of us piled into the open convertible that Gordon Landbe had to drive some sixteen miles to Killeen, Texas from Fort Hood. We stopped on a desolate corner, where stood a small brick building, a “hotel” with a name I do not remember. Along one side ran railroad tracks and what looked like desert.

     

            Jumping out of the car with my duffel bag, I stood on the corner. The car turned around and started to return to camp. The horn blew and one of the others, known only as Biff, called out to me.

     

“So long, Doggy!”

     

I went inside and rented a room to await the morning train that would go directly to Chicago. One change there and it was directly to Boston. And Home.

     

            My mother did not come to the airport when I arrived from my first year of my golden state tenure. Instead, she was where she always was when I was a child. In the kitchen, reading her paper. I walked up those stairs that my grandparents had teetered up so many times in the past, walked past the living room where the Christmas presents had overflowed, through the dining room and peered into the kitchen.

     

            “Hey, there,” I said. “Anybody, home?”

     

            My mother jumped out of her chair and, tears streaming down her face, hugged me with all her might. If my grandmother had been there to greet me  -  as I can imagine her greeting my father in 1955 – I’d like to think that the answer would be simply, no. I would not have moved at all.

You’re In The Army Now

            To me, war was something I saw in the movies or in television sitcoms. What little I did know, or fear, was taught me in my history classes. When selective service got reinstated, I was in a total panic. What if I were drafted? How would I survive basic training and what would I do if I had to hold and shoot a gun? I wanted to bolt out of town the day I had to sign up at the post office – how much was it to move to Canada? My predicament made it so clear, that, yet again, I could not have been more different from both my father and grandfather.

     

            Pa and my brother Ralph came up to see me at Fort Devens, where I was for two weeks before flying to Georgia for basic training. The Korean War was going strong. It was Pa’s first time at Devens since he spent six months there during WWI. Ralph was discharged a few months before my induction. I was to miss his wedding because of my time in the service - it would have taken three days to get home and the cost was prohibitive. What were the two of them thinking of this kid going off to war?

     

            Sometime in the night of that first week in the army, we heard a scream and that’s how I found out who was designated a C.Q., which stood for company quarters or call to quarters. It’s the CQs job to make bed checks. The man who made the commotion thought someone was stealing his money.

     

            At the end of the second week, we were bused to Logan Airport and during that time, I never met anyone I grew up with. But that night, working behind a restaurant counter alone was a very petite girl in high heels. It was Barbara Gillis and we went to the Mary C. Burke School together until the sixth grade. I never called her and this was to be my first plane ride. I was not looking forward to leaving the ground.

     

We thought we were all going directly to Korea but it was to basic training where they taught us to shoot and kill. It was hard and intense and the men who had to learn heavy weapons spent a month or more in training. We were sent to the signal corps school at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for six months.

     

My father at Fort Hood - 1955

     



                          Six months? When I was in sixth grade, I went, unwillingly, to camp for a whole week that seemed like an eternity. To this day, I’m not sure where it was but it felt like a lifetime to get there and mail call mid week was my happiest time. Survive basic training and the desert landscape of war? I could barely make it through seven days without the slings and arrows of my peers directed at me.

     

   

     



     

            Monmouth was no picnic. Classes all morning, parade marching practice every afternoon, passing in review every Saturday. It took hours and seemed as if every man in America was there. Kitchen Police (KP) and guard duty every two weeks from six to nine. I always got pots and pans that never burned on the bottom no matter what the cooks made because they lined the bottom with sliced white bread that absorbed the grease. Nevertheless, sometimes, the inspection officer would declare the trays greasy, so before breakfast started, we had to rewash them. They used to take us out of class to pull KP and we’d miss the lessons.

          



     
  With all the water, I had a large wart on my right hand finger and it opened up like a flower. I had to go on sick call where a doctor stuck a needle through my finger and cut it out. I had a buck slip for no duty for a few days.

     

            My friends at that summer camp were few and far between. There was the fat kid, Robert, an outcast like me and my former best friend from grammar school, David, who one day just stopped talking to me. I missed him, but after high school, I never saw him again.

     

            Someone was calling me on the parade grounds. It was a guy from Chelsea, Kilroy was his last name, I couldn’t remember his first. I think he was a school teacher and that was the extent of our conversation. When I went to look him up a few days later, he had shipped out.

     

            I’ve never been an outdoors kind of person. Give me a cocktail and a swimming pool under a hot blazing sun and I am the happiest person on the face of the earth. My friends came to Palm Springs once and hiked up one of the many mountain trails. After posting several pictures of the day online, another friend asked why I was not in any of the shots. The reply was simple. “A hike? Tella?”

     

            In the early morning of August 1953, with full field packs, entrenching tools (folding shovels) and extra boots, we started on our 12 mile hike. It was a clear bright day on a dusty dirt road through the woods of Fort Gordon, Georgia. The second we started, it became scorching hot. If someone fell out, we were told, we were not to stop and help them. Someone following behind in a vehicle would pick them up. Men did fall, one who was known to have seizures, I was told, was swallowing his tongue. He was about thirty yards up front. Out of the blue, a helicopter landed to retrieve him. The line stopped for a time and the dust was chocking and blinding.

     

            We continued on, exhausted and finally we reached an area where we were told to pick a partner and set up pup tents. Someone taps me on the shoulder and said he wanted me to be his partner. He was not too tall and soft spoken and his name was Vincent DelCatto from Brooklyn and it turns out he was runner up for a weightlifting title of New York City. What I remember most is being tired, hungry and dirty. But I never fell out.

     

All dressed up - 1955. There's no mistaking we're related.

                




           
              I can pinpoint the exact time when my dislike of gym class began. I was an overweight kid in the sixth grade and running the 100-yard dash was always my worst fear. Without fail, I was the last one to finish, wheezing, nauseous and ready to faint. It was humiliating to see my classmates’ faces and feel the awful sympathy from my P.E. teacher. It is a feeling that never left me.

     

            I can’t remember how wide or how long the Infiltration Course was, but it was set up like a rifle range. The back end was ten feet deep so the bullets would go over your head. The whole area was covered with mesh wire. Since it was almost in your face, I suspect it was 12 to 15 inches high. On the front end were mounted three light machine guns and I remember the area was mostly sand. There were two dry runs and one wet (live amo). While I was waiting my turn to go through, I notice the rounds were hitting the mound behind me. Every third or fifth were tracers and you could see the red glow of the round.

     

            When it was my turn, I put my rifle in front horizontally and with my elbows, thrust myself forward. Forgetting the rounds and small charge that would set off, I never stopped. Halfway through was a large soldier, frozen scared near the rocks and I kept going. When I came out, you had to yell kill and stab a straw dummy affixed to a post. The big soldier there did not like the way I said, “kill,” and had me go back and do it all again. I thrust the dummy so hard; I couldn’t pull the bayonet out. The sergeant came over, put his foot on the dummy and pulled. Without saying a word, he handed me my rifle and I went on my way. The only wounds I had was where the sand ran up my sleeves and took the skin off my elbows.

     

            The memory of that 100 yard dash followed me to high school, where the gym classes were expanded to include all sorts of ridiculous games. Once, we had gymnastics for an entire four week span. Really? The pummel horse? Climbing a rope? Perform the vault? I thought they were insane and two times a week, I searched for excuses to get out of class. My gym instructor was a former athlete, and I remember watching him do a rings routine that seemed superhuman. I’m sure it was horrific for him to have me in his class. As the days went by, he mercifully overlooked me when it was my turn.

     

            One afternoon, I discovered a snake about two feet long in my sleeping bag. It left the bag and went under the tent edge where I cut it in half with my shovel and buried it. Some mornings we could see deer tracks by our pup tents, but I never saw one making them. On one of the jumps that I did not see, a sergeant’s chute did not open and a private caught his line and they came down together. He was promoted on the spot.

     

            Two weeks before we were set to leave, they had us remove and clean the stoves. It was cold and we froze our asses off. We had been in the field for six months with no time off and they gave us a weekend free during maneuvers. We hitch hiked 60 miles to Raleigh North Carolina. And it was, I think, Mothers Day. The town was quiet and everything was closed. We couldn’t get back to camp quick enough.

     

            Food was never lacking in my life. Even during that week at camp, I never missed a meal. It got me through the myriad of outdoor activities that were set up for us and breakfast was always my favorite meal. But there was never any Capn’ Crunch, which at the time, was my all-time favorite cereal.

     

            Every weekend, the non commissioned officers would back up their cars to the mess hall and would steal a little of everything. If you were late for breakfast on Monday morning, they would run out of food. Condensed Milk in a can was the cream for our coffee. It wasn’t until months later when we traveled that we learned how well the Navy and Air Force ate. We couldn’t believe it. They didn’t call us doggy for nothing.

     

            During my junior high days, I was tormented by a boy named Frank. He was taller than me, a dark Italian who lived in South Medford, a part of town that was home to many of my tormentors. One day, I could not take it any longer and I shoved him to the ground and he fell among the bushes. I don’t know if it was out of fear or out of the sheer frustration of being bullied, but I had had enough. I remember he was paid by another boy to be his protector, but he never bothered me again.

     

            We were told we had to pay three dollars each to pay for two floor polishers. If we didn’t, then we would have to buff the floors on our hands and knees. One look and you could tell the machines were extremely old. So, we paid. How high up the larceny went, I’ll never know, but every two months, it was a pretty good take.

Life Changes Again

            To this day, I’m extremely jealous of those my age that still have their grandparents. It’s why I love my elders and see in them what might have been for me and what should have been for my grandparents. As with my grandmother before him, I can’t recall the day Papa went into the hospital or why he was admitted. I was a freshman in high school, and old enough to be admitted for visiting hours. 

     

            Pa suffered for weeks from a brain hemorrhage, coming in and out of normalcy and not being able to speak or feed himself. One day he couldn’t hold a spoon or talk and the next, he’d be as sharp as ever. Finally, one afternoon he said to me, “I want to go in a nice way.” And then he gave me a list of things that I said I would take care of for him. An hour later, the call came and my brother Ralph and I went to the hospital to collect his things. He was still in bed and I thought he’d never looked better. There was color in his cheeks and he could have been sleeping. Pa went, as he wanted, in a nice way.

     

            We were eating pizza for dinner that night when the phone call came and somehow, when the person on the other end asked for my father, I knew what had happened. My brother bolted out of the room, I think, running to my cousin’s house across the way. I sat at the kitchen table. Did I cry? I can’t recall, but my world had shifted again. Maybe because there were other wakes since that first time I set foot in a funeral home, but I did not need my mother’s hand. I turned to my cousin, Janet, and I said, “It feels as if his spirit isn’t even here, does it?” She looked at me, patted my arm and said, “He could not wait to be with grandma.”

     

            To this day, I believe what Janet said to me with all my heart. Leaving us was easy because of what waited for him on the other side.

Four Generations of Italian Men

            When I first read my father's affection for his own father, I couldn’t help but feel surprise with a mixture of guilt. My Papa was an enigma to me and after my grandmother passed away, he was withdrawn and a shell of the man he used to be. If I couldn’t remember him smiling or laughing when my grandmother was alive, I certainly never saw it in the years that followed his wife’s passing. The one thing that I will forever be grateful for is the example he set that true and solid love does exist. I don’t think a man has ever loved a woman more than he did his Christine. For years, I could hear him calling her name late at night and it broke my heart. Although I never saw them hold hands or say I love you – every night, their actions showed me how much they cared for each other. It’s a lesson that still holds true for me today – I believe nothing anyone says about love. They have to show me that they care and let me see what they say is true.

     

            As I read through my father’s letters, I wondered why I wasn’t as close to him as he so obviously was to his. In the end, I’ve realized, the feelings are the same – it’s just the path that leads there was so very different.

     

            Business men, doctors, lawyers and sports personalities all came into Cal’s to buy suits and coats at a discount. Pa said some would spend $1,000 or more during one visit alone. One day, the Red Sox player, Tony Conigliaro came in to buy some jackets. I don’t think Pa liked him; it seems he was less than a gentleman. However, Pa got his signature for you and your brother and I put it on your bulletin board in your bedroom. The years have faded the ink, but I still have it.

     

            I never knew, or I don’t remember being told where that signature of Tony came from – it was just there. My grandfather had a love/hate relationship with the Boston Red Sox. He would watch every game and scream at the television when the manager, Don Zimmer, would leave the players on the field. I could never ask for help with my Italian homework if a Red Sox game was on. When the curse of the bambino was finally broken in 2004 and the Boston Red Sox became world champions, I couldn’t help but cry. I’m a Boston sports fan by default and I immediately thought of my papa and how overjoyed he would have been to see the trophy finally reside in the city he called home.

     

            Cal owned the three story building on the corner of Dudley and Tremont Streets. Although he sold suits, he was not a tailor, so he was glad to hire Pa. He would sell suits of any size and Pa would rip them apart to fit the customers. One day, there was a fire on the second floor and Cal’s sustained mostly water damage. Pa told me to come in because the suits were on sale shortly after. Pa picked out four suits that had no damage and I got them all for about $20 each.

     

            What I do recall about my grandfather was his profession. For years, it didn’t matter what kind of pants I bought – with his white chalk in hand and his pins and his sewing machine, my clothes fit as if they were made for me.

     

            We had a German Shepherd who would nip at strangers. One day, the dog attacked a man walking by the front of the house. The man wore a leather jacket and it was torn high up on the left shoulder. Pa said he could repair the coat, and at just this time, a policeman came by and noticed the three stars in the window (they represented the soldiers in the family during WWII). The cop talked to the stranger and they both walked away. Pa admitted to me later that he knew nothing about working with leather.

     

            For years, my father was banished to the cellar to smoke his cigars. They were horrible smelling things and I despised the smell of them. My mother was also no fan, which is probably why her step mother consistently gave them to my father every Christmas. He would alternate between these and pipes. Even though the tobacco in a pipe is just as dangerous to your health, I loved the smell of it. To this day when I walk by a smoke shop or smell a pipe, I think of my father. I gave him some tobacco as a gift once only to find out he had stopped smoking years ago. 

     

            Pa smoked as far back as I can remember – mostly Lucky Strikes. I calculate that he stopped at the age of 56 when the first warnings from the surgeon general came out about the ill effects. I don’t know if he stopped for himself or for his sons.

     

            As I got older, the onslaught of puberty is one I don’t remember as being particularly traumatic or memorable. I remember being fat one moment, tall and skinny the next and of course, fuzz appeared on my face. I think it was another Christmas and my father got me an electric razor. I was in no mood to learn how to shave and as soon as he plugged it in and assaulted my face, I was screaming for him to stop. I didn’t like this new phase of my life. Although I use a razor blade today, I still despise shaving. If there were a way to laser it off – I would pay any price.

     

            Pa always used a safety razor and at an early age because of an unknown skin condition I developed, Pa took me to Boston and bought an electric razor. (After some fifty years, the affliction just disappeared). After trying different brands, I am sold on Norelco. In the 60’s, when I worked full-time for the National Guard, I had access to the Post Exchange (PX) at Fort Banks. It was located in Winthrop and on a visit there, I bought Pa a Norelco, which I know he loved because he used the brand exclusively for the rest of his life.

     

            I knew next to nothing about my grandfather’s life in Italy, only knowing that he lived in Ortona, a city on the Adriatic Sea in Abruzzi roughly 105 miles from Rome. He made only two trips back to his homeland and never spoke to me of his father or his siblings.

     

            Pa relied mostly on his brother-in-law Frank to take him to visit his father’s grave in Newburyport. What is now a forty minute drive was a three hour one – at least, that’s what it seemed like to me. My grandfather’s grave is off to the side where mostly families are buried together. His was more of a pauper’s section. The cemetery has since been sold and a small stone bears his name, Dominic. No date of birth or death, but the nearest I can come up with is 1927. Aunt Lil remembers him taking her out when she was very little and he must have been around to see Pa and Ma married in 1925. Today, the cemetery is so full; it is difficult to see his small stone. Every time we went there, on the way home, around Topsfield, I think, we stopped at a store that sold large milkshakes.

     

            My brother and I joined them on this annual pilgrimage, but my recollections of it are few. The drive did seem endless and I’m disappointed that I can’t remember the milkshakes. If there was ice cream involved in anything, I was there.

Angels Live Forever, Don’t They?

           My grandmother was my world – pure and simple. Just watching her cook while I sat on a stool with my elbows perched on the counter was, to me, the perfect day. She would be covered with flour and let me eat the cookie dough, and always made me promise not to tell. I would do anything she asked, except, I never became a dentist. She hated going to the dentist and for years, she would tell me to be one.  I often wonder where my life would be today if I had taken her advice. I’m not sure looking in people’s mouths would have been satisfying, but every now and then I think how fun it would be to knock people out and cause them pain.

     

            Ma had an affliction with the evil eye. She believed individuals wished her harm or were jealous. Now, even when I was young, I knew that oil and water didn’t mix, but about once a year, Ma would take a small saucer and fill it with water and into this she would add a few drops of olive oil. If the oil made large circles, which it always did, she would exclaim that someone was wishing her harm.

     

            That superstition was to stick around for years as I also can picture so clearly, my grandmother pouring the oil into the bowl of water. One time she took the bowl and swirled it over her head before peering into what the fates had in store for her. Of course, there were also the strange little deer heads that hung on our front porch. Cursed by someone I can’t recall, as ugly as they were, we were never allowed by my grandmother to remove them.

     

            One of the Angiulo Brothers (a known Mafia family) lived in one of the white single family homes near us, right at the corner of Emerald and Spring Streets. Your mother’s aunt lived one street over and every time Ma and your mother walked by the house, in case Angiulo came out, Ma would say, “Walk a little faster.”



     

1971. I can still remember the feel of her sparkly green dress.

          




              Looking back, there are wonderfully comical moments. Of all the memories I have, there is one that I cannot recall. One that I am glad I was spared, is when my grandmother first became ill. Perhaps, I’ve blocked that out or fate has spared me that pain. I just remember that she had gone away for a short time but then was back. There was no talk of illness.

     

            I asked Ma’s doctor how she was doing, and he bluntly told me she was going to die. I went numb and wanted to punch his lights out. Years, later, Pa was so angry with me for not telling him. In the hospital, she would often slide down in bed and when I put my hand under her shoulder, she was so light. I almost threw her through the headboard. I still remember her saying to me, “I feel okay. I’m not going to die, I hope.”

     

            My grandmother returned home after that first hospital stay and I was clueless as to the evil sickness that was ravaging her body. I still ran downstairs and spent every second with her before I had to go to bed. And then one day, she was back in the hospital. It seemed as if it were weeks since I’d seen her. My brother and I would sit in the waiting room during visiting hours while my parents disappeared into the hallway and up the elevators. I read my Batman comic book cover to cover and I can remember the smell and the sounds all around me, but I cannot recall the conversation between my brother and me. Maybe we didn’t even speak.

     

            Young children were not allowed in the hospital rooms, but one night, my parents came downstairs and told me the greatest news I’d ever heard. She wanted to see us the next day. My grandmother wanted to see me. I closed the comic book and that night I went to bed so incredibly happy, until, at 2 in the morning, my mother’s sobbing on the edge of my bed woke me up. My room was dark, yet the light was on in the kitchen. I heard my father's voice as he spoke in a failed whisper on the phone. My mother was heaving, my bed continued to shake and instantly, my world crumbled.

     

            There was such heavy rain the night Ma died.  It was dark and the storm seemed to ravage everything, but when the sun rose it was bright and sunny. I have always pictured my mother ascending to heaven in that sunshine.

     

            What is death to an eight-year-old boy? I don’t think I could even grasp the concept of what happened beyond the fact that something I loved so much was gone. My father was 40 years old that June day. My grandmother was 68 years, 4 months and 14 days old. Both age concepts are still so wrong and hard to grasp for me. My brother refused to go into the funeral home, instead he stood panicked in the lobby crying uncontrollably. I looked at my mother with a fierce determination and gripping her hand so tightly that I could feel my knuckles turning white, I walked inside, knelt in front of my grandmother, kissed her hand and saw her one last time to bid her goodbye.