In Remembrance

     It would not be right to let this week go by without mentioning the passing of my Uncle Tony. He died Friday night, at home and at peace at the age of ninety-nine. He was my mother's last surviving sibling out of seven and he was the last of all my aunts and uncles on both sides of my parents. I feel my mother's sadness. Her loneliness on this earth for someone from her past is palpable. She is all that is left of her generation in our family, the very last one, and she misses them terribly. All I can do to ease her grief is to listen to her tell me the stories. Each morning, over the phone I listen, and I never tire of them.
     We have so many Tony's in our Italian family, we make jokes of it. But there was only one "Uncle" Tony Maffeo. We said his last name with the "Uncle Tony" part when mentioning him in conversation in order to differentiate between him and our other Uncle Tony- Carusone. There were actually three Uncle Tony's, but the third was Uncle Anthony, so that solved that dilemma. The stories my mother tells of their life as children in the 1920's and 30's in downtown Albany, New York makes me long to be there, to play alongside them. The stories have become rich and even foreign in our age of technology. I picture the scenes in sepia because that is how all the photographs have captured them.  
     One particular story tells how my Uncle Tony and his friends built a car when he was nineteen. They built this car from scrounged parts. When it was finished, the boys drove it to the World's Fair in Chicago. The year was 1933. Can you imagine something like that happening today? Uncle Tony was very good at building mechanical things and he also built an airplane two years before. I don't believe it flew, but it had wings and he did drive it on the road. He was seven years older than my mother and when he was fourteen and she was six, they got into a bit of trouble together. One particular day in 1928, he was told by my grandmother that he was not allowed to go to Mid City Park. There was a big city pool there and amusement rides. He disobeyed and went anyway, toting his little sister (my mother) along with him and his friends. I guess they had a grand time until she lost her shoe on one of the rides. He had to carry her piggy back all the way home, a distance of two and a half miles. The lost shoe gave away their deception and my mother recalls being grounded for a very long time. This is the memory my mom talks about most often these past few days, how she so clearly remembers her brother carrying her on his back all the way home.
     Ironically, Uncle Tony was a sickly child and suffered several health issues throughout his long life. Yet he is the longest lived of all the siblings so far. I love the irony of that. He would have liked to have been able to say he lived to be one hundred, but I have a feeling he is much happier that he didn't wait another year to make his final journey home. I picture him with all the generations gone before him, everyone reunited, one by one, into the presence and the glory of the Lord.
     I miss you all, my aunts and uncles, father and sister. Please save a cannoli for me!

Aunt Millie, Uncle Tony, Aunt Katherine, Aunt Angie, I believe the little child on the left is my mom's cousin Maccala and then my mom. (Maccala was named after the Immaculate Conception, but everyone used her nickname which was pronounced, mock a la')

Five of the seven siblings, Aunt Angie, Uncle Lenny (after whom I am named), my mom Marian, Uncle Tony, Aunt Katherine

My grandfather's store, my first cousins Dan and Sonny (with the bike), my Uncle Anthony in front of the window. The Maffeo children were all born and raised in the flat above the store.

Uncle Tony with his beautiful bride, my Aunt Marie