I’M STILL AMAZED

Many years ago there was this little old man. He was not older than 4-years and not taller than my kneecaps. He could talk up a storm and had the logic of a sage. He was always correcting his old man and was probably more mature too.

When life was really good

He took on the weight of the world and had the guts to deal with it, being his older sister had special needs. He seemed to be protective of her and when he wasn’t busy correcting me, protecting his sister and making statements that I needed a grownup to interpret for me, he was reading the Kings and Queens of England

AT 6-YEARS OLD! HE WOULD WAIT IN AMBUSH FOR ME TO COME HOME FROM WORK, AND FROM AN UPPER STORY OF MY HOUSE, DUMP WATER ON MY HEAD AS I ENTERED MY HOUSE.

Sometimes I would walk into my house if I weren’t bombed with water first, and get jumped on from the kitchen counter as he waited for me, or on the back sill of a 62 Chevy Impala as he hid from me in the open at the railroad station as I got into the car with TLW waiting to drive me home. “Where is Anthony?” I’d ask as he giggled, thinking I didn’t see him.

Little Bobby D

There was the time when as a little kid, maybe 3 we sat at the dinner table, and his sister with special needs was in a bad humor that night. She was so bad I decided that I would take her away from the table and try to calm her down. Well, the little old man jumps up as I went to get my daughter and stood between us, raised his little hand and said: “Daddy, don’t!” He thought I was going to hit her, but I wasn’t. I went off to the bedroom by myself and cried for the first time in many years, realizing he was taking on this burden.

Being it was winter did not keep him from reminding me that spring training was just 90 days or so away, glove and baseball ready to play, even though he was wearing a winter coat and digesting the last of his Thanksgiving dinner!

His first song was Meet the Mets, and all of Mitch Miller's favorites came right after that. Baseball, baseball, baseball was all it took for him to give you his full attention, yet he could read, reason and do math with the ease of any 50-year-old intellect.

 

With his namesake

He has done what I always wanted to do, live on Madison Avenue in NYC, or live in Southern California, a dream come true for me, but his reality. If there was anyone I would want to live my dreams, it’s Anthony and he deserves it all.

Now he is in a new phase of his life as he leads his children to adulthood. The tragedy that has befallen him in the lost of his beautiful wife and outstanding mother will not hold him down. He has an amazing spirit and the guts to face the future.