Home

There's something special about going home. We all know the feeling. There's home where our house is and home where we came from and it is often our hearts that link the two. Some of us still live in the town we were born in, others of us have long since left but still carry that town, in our hearts, like a love letter. I was born in Pittsburgh, moved with my family to California shortly thereafter, went home to visit only twice in my childhood, once while in college and a final time when my grandmother died. But if you ask me where I run when I need to feel safe? No question about it. The answer is Pittsburgh. With Anthony's slow development, with the very real chance that he could be handicapped or worse, I needed to go home. I needed to draw on the energies of family and family love and, I won't lie, as odd as it may sound to you, I needed to visit my grandfather or, more importantly, his grave.

When you are born with a number next to your name you either take it as a novelty or you take it seriously. When I was growing up my grandparents often made the trip to visit my Dad and I (my parents had by then divorced) and my Grandpap became a very powerful influence in my young mind. He was quiet but jovial, loving and encouraging. It was often hard to understand him with his thick Italian accent but we formed a very tight bond. I knew immediately that this man expected me to carry myself a certain way, behave a certain way, and to honor our shared name of Anthony in the life I would lead. Grandpap and I touched lives briefly, only a half dozen times or so in all before he passed but it was the very same brevity in these visits that made them so powerful. It was as if the lessons and advice he had time to give his other grandchildren over many years had to be distilled and concentrated for me. I ate it up and, I'm sure, romanticized a lot of it, but it worked. When my own Anthony was born his name and the roman numeral that followed were a given the second he popped out. Many times next to that incubator in the NICU and Huntington Hospital, all alone, terrified, I felt my grandfather's teachings ringing in my ears and, I am positive, his ghost at my side.

After unpacking at my cousin Celeste's home and visiting for a few days it was obvious to many that Anthony had issues. His eye was one thing but even now, at eighteen months, he wasn't crawling at all. His legs were very stiff and when he moved he dragged them across the floor with his upper torso. I have a large Italian family. Many cousins and aunts, many mom's, and they knew something was wrong. I caught many a loving but worried glance in their eyes. After a bit I asked to go to my Grandpap's grave, not realizing how rare and hard this was for the vast majority of my family to do. Even then, more than a decade after his death, no one could fully accept that he was gone. It hurt too much. Such was the weight of his memory in all of their lives. My cousin Patty Ann finally agreed, almost in tears, to take us.

The next day at the cemetery under the shade of a tree I set my son down on my Grandpap's grave. He sat and stared at the birds and the big blue sky while I prayed for miracles and interventions. We placed flowers there. Anthony played with them. My cousin cried, my wife cried. I did not. Instead I talked to my Grandpap in a silent whisper. "This child has our name now. I have passed it on. Help him, or find someone in heaven who can." Silly? To some reading this yes, to others perhaps not. In my heart? No doubt. I had gone to the Big Guy in my life and asked him to go speak to the Biggest Guy of all. When we left the wind was at our backs and I took note.

The next day Anthony crawled for the first time, across the carpet in my cousin's front room, right next to her piano. It was amazing. It was a miracle. He scooted, then he scooted some more and his legs bent enough to get him going and then there was no stopping him.