A CURIOUS VIEW: A VALENTINE’S GIFT FOR MY UNCLE TONY
Forty–six years ago, on a mild, sunny Valentine’s Day in the Bronx, my Uncle Tony died.
And I cried and cried.
He was a bigger-than-life character, and he looked like a movie star. His hands were unusually large…like the hands of a prizefighter…and when he gripped the quart-size bottle of Rheingold beer that he had with his dinner every night, his hands covered the entire bottle.
He loved to fish and swim, and he especially liked company. He walked with a noticeable limp…a polio victim when he was just a child. He always lived with his parents (my grandparents), and his youngest sister, Rena (my aunt).
My Uncle Tony worked as a doorman at the ritzy ‘Sutton Place’ in midtown Manhattan. Occasionally, he would tell me about a famous movie star or ballplayer he had met, and how unimpressed he usually was…something I would learn first-hand years later.
He adored his mother and, as she would reprimand him from the makeshift living room where she was watching television, he always would reply, “I would never give the child any beer, Mom.”
Of course, he was lying and would give me a sip of beer, then stick a piece of garlic in my mouth from the nearby tomato sauce.
He would whisper to me, “Your grandma is the greatest woman in the world, and the only thing I ask of God is to let me die before she does.” Then, he would touch the large crucifix around his neck and kiss it softly.
Uncle Tony preached to me about the virtue of being a strong man. How a real man would never hit a woman…only a coward would do such a thing. He hated cowards, and he used to tell me over and over that the worst thing a man could be is a coward.
He told me wonderful stories about the old Bronx when he was growing up… how he would hit long homeruns in the park where they played, and then he would have my Uncle Sonny run the bases for him.
My parents, my brothers and I lived directly above my grandparents in an old apartment building. I was always down in my grandparent’s place, and I used to sit with my Uncle Tony every night when he got home from work, which was usually around eight o’clock.
My grandma always had dinner waiting for him. He was off on Mondays and Sundays, and those were the really great days because I could spend more time with him.
He promised me that he would teach me how to fish and swim like a champion. “I was just a year away” as he used to put it.
On a Monday afternoon as I rushed home from school to have lunch, my Uncle Tony had a massive stroke.
Three days later on St. Valentine’s Day, he passed away.
Today, whenever I visit the Bronx, I always go to the cemetery to visit my uncle’s grave. The tears still come as I look down at his name, engraved on the tombstone directly below the name of my grandmother.
And I always think of an old saying from the Bible, “In death, they were not parted.”
A Curious View 