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.