A Small Italian Life

No feet, no legs, no knees. Just a stump of a beggar. I never forgot him. Maybe

now, more than ever, I needed to be reminded that there were and still are people who are worse off than me. Everything is blurry and fuzzy as the shadow standing next to my bed asks me how I feel. I remember spurting out some gibberish that he didn’t understand. Maybe I should have been more succinct. I feel like shit, doc! 

          The anesthesia was still paralyzing my body and sensory perception. I kept drifting in and out of consciousness, one moment aware of my wife and kids, the next moment in a dream-like state, thinking about my childhood, my dad. My mom.

Slowly, I’m walking up the stairwell and down the dimly lit hallway of the hospital. I hear the words whispering in my mind from Connie Francis’ song. “Mama, until the day we’re together once more, I’ll live in these memories.”  As I enter her room I have that knot in my stomach, the one that as a kid I felt before an athletic event or when something terrible happened.

         I knew that this was the end. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. Her breathing was very slow but she wasn’t suffering. She even seemed at peace, which she probably was for the first time in her life. Her dreams never fulfilled.

         We were still Jimmy Boy and Joanie Girl to her. That never changed. Not even as she lay here taking her final breaths. I was still her little three year-old boy who would put his head on her lap. Comforting him with her arms around him, loving and shielding him from the world. Somehow distancing me from her fierce, fiery nature. Never letting me forget she was the boss. Red welts on my arms well into my teenage years. Angry. But always loving me.

         She never forgot to thank God before each meal. Most importantly she never forgot her daily prayers in front of her makeshift altar, kneeling before her icons, St. Joseph, St Anthony, St. Jude and the Blessed Mother.  Prayer book and rosaries in hand. Never embarrassed, never wavering in her belief in the power of prayer. Always thank God for what you have.

         Now I stand here watching her almost lifeless body, bones and muscles eaten away by cancer, ready to take her last breath, ready to be separated from her soul, ready to meet her God. I’m holding her cold hand. She whispers, Jimmy Boy why, are you crying? I want to say to her, Mom, I love you. Should it be that hard? The words never came, not even on her deathbed.

         Whispering into her ear, Mom can you hear me? But there is no motion, just a lifeless body. Mom, do you remember when I was a little boy? My words drifted into silence.

         Awake again, barely seeing and hearing my wife and kids. My son Darren proclaims, Dad, we finally got Samson.

         Samson my donkey. My running partner.

        Yeh, dad!  exclaimed Kacey. Daddy’s little girl was always excitable. We had to chase him halfway down the mountain, and then….

         I was downstairs in the funeral parlor, picking out her casket. What a lousy feeling. We talked about what she should have. No insects should get into her casket. Then we buried her in the same cemetery as her mom and dad and all the relatives in our family. Her family and friends surrounding her grave, holding roses.  Cousin Joey telling Joanie and me, Now’s the time to toss the roses on her casket.

         I awoke in a dark room with the family gone. The nurse is telling me it’s two in the morning. I am thirsty with dry cottonmouth. I wanted something to eat but couldn’t hold down any food. I wanted to go to the bathroom but couldn’t. The male nurse put a catheter into my manhood to empty my bladder.

         Now it’s Syracuse again. Those early years, struggles, rejections, and heartache. Never knowing where I was going next, never knowing what would happen.

         I wish the words would come easy. Aching to tell it for so many years. I wish I could tell it.

        Why did those things happen to me? I’m feeling sorry for myself again. But then what would the phantom beggar think?

         I’ve been here before. Hurt, angry and bitter. Only this time my injury is permanent.  I clos