Uncle Tony

My Aunt Margie called from Arizona today, to tell me that Uncle Tony passed away on Friday night. All of us knew that he was getting more and more frail, weaker and weaker, but no one was thinking about any particular day being 'the last day.'

Well, Friday was the last one for Uncle Tony. He watched a baseball game, went to bed early, and took his last breath sometime before 10:00 that night. That's when Aunt Margie went into the bedroom... and she knew he was gone. They had been married for more than 65 years.

Uncle Tony was the last of my dad's brothers... the rest are all gone now. Of all my grandparents' children, only my Aunt Dolly and my Aunt Jaye are still here. Aunt Dolly will be 98 next month..... Aunt Jaye will be 91 in December. They are both in excellent health.

I called my cousins in Arizona to tell them how sorry I was.... they are already talking about the deep void they're feeling without their dad, but they're also laughing about all the good memories they shared as a family. And Uncle Tony's family was a family. Uncle Tony let nothing get in the way of his family's time together, not even the rest of the family. Their time was their time, and when they were done, they would join in with the rest of the family, whose number was considerable. My grandparents had ten children, seven of which lived past childhood to marry and establish families of their own.

And out of all of those 'established' families, Uncle Tony and Aunt Margie's family was the only one not torn apart by divorce. So keeping their own family time to themselves must have been the right way to go.

Uncle Tony's legacy to us all was his opinion that 'Life was meant to be fun, and if it wasn't fun, then what was the point?'

Of all the memories that I have of Uncle Tony, one stands out above the rest. Just about the whole family was at my grandparents' house the week after Christmas... having yet another holiday dinner and exchanging gifts. The first dinner celebration had been on Christmas Day, but not everyone could be there, so all during the week, we kept getting together again and again.... more macaroni and sauce, more lasagna, more presents, more pastries. Christmas kept going and going and going and we were all just having a good time.

My Uncle Bernie's gift to my Uncle Mino that year was a wristwatch. The wrapping paper was silvery and shiny, and My Aunt Dolly told Uncle Mino to fold it neatly so she could re-use it. The watch came in a heavy wooden box which caught my father's eye. My dad didn't think a watch was a 'real' watch unless it hung on a chain, so wristwatches didn't get his attention... but that nice fancy wooden box seemed more interesting to him than the watch itself.

As my aunts and uncles were ooohing and aaahing over the watch, my dad was turning the box over in his hands and looking at how it was made and put together. Uncle Tony got my Uncle Bernie's attention and they watched as my dad kept singing the praises of the craftsman who made that box.

The following Christmas, all of my uncles were as silent as mice as my dad opened his gift..... they had wrapped up the wooden box from the year before, the same box that once held Uncle Mino's wristwatch........ Uncle Tony and Uncle Bernie just about fell out of their chairs laughing as my dad unwrapped that empty box. My dad loved that wood box..... kept it on his dresser for years, to hold his pocket watch and loose change..... and for many holidays after that, everyone laughed all over again about the year Uncle Tony and Uncle Bernie wrapped up that empty wooden box for my dad.

My father always talked about the day Uncle Tony got the letter from the NY Yankees. Uncle Tony loved baseball, and he was an expert player. So much so that the NY Yankees sent scouts out to watch him play when he was young. Unfortunately for my Uncle Tony ("and unfortunately for the Yankees," my dad would say) the team had a height requirement, and Uncle Tony was about an inch shorter than their minimum height. The Yankees couldn't sign him to the team, and they sent Uncle Tony a letter stating just that. He kept the letter, in its original envelope, and he showed it to me on one of our trips out to Arizona. That height requirement was eventually changed, but by that time, Uncle Tony's life had gone in another direction.

The last gift I gave Uncle Tony was a NY Yankee bat, signed by Alex Rodriquez. Uncle Tony's eyes puddled up as soon as he saw the bat..... I didn't wrap it up in paper, but I had streamers of red, white and blue ribbons all over that bat, and I had it hidden behind my back as I walked into his house when we were out in Arizona. Uncle Tony loved that bat so much that he had a special plexi-glass case made for it and he hung it up on the wall in his living room. I will never forget the look on his face when he saw that bat.

My Aunt Margie sounded okay on the phone this morning..... for a woman who has lost her husband after more than 65 years of marriage, she's taking his passing as well as can be expected. She's grateful that his last day was at home, that he didn't suffer, that he didn't have to be hospitalized, that he went to bed peacefully and then went to heaven peacefully.

I have no idea what heaven is like, nor am I even sure that I believe such a place exists. But if it does, then I hope in that place called 'heaven,' everyone who passes from this earth is able to meet up with everyone they've known on this planet who has passed away before them. In my mind's eye, I can see my grandparents, daddy, my mother, my aunts and uncles, my close friends...... they're all in that place called 'heaven' and they're talking and laughing, they're happy and peaceful, nothing is there to spoil the moment or disrupt the joy. Nothing happens to pull anyone apart.... no one is unhealthy or unhappy... everyone is loving and forgiving.

No one is unhappy... everyone is loving and forgiving. Nothing is there to spoil the moment or disrupt the joy. Sort of a shame that we can't have that right here on earth.