Tribute

The privilege of attending one funeral.

My Uncle Nick died. Except he wasn’t really my uncle. He and his wife had been friends of my parents for close to 70 years. Before I was born they and my parents decided they would be known as “aunt” and “uncle” to their children in keeping with an old New York Italian tradition. I remember asking my parents how we were related to them when I was a kid. There was a fuzzy answer to this question. They lived far away and I remember long car rides to their house on Long Island. Traveling for hours in the car often meant we were going to see relatives so this made sense. I remember swimming in their pool with their seven children. Uncle Nick had tattoos on both arms from his time in the Navy which he tried to keep covered as much as possible since he had gone on to become a dentist and was ashamed of them. I found out at his funeral that he had served during World War II. He was 91 when he passed. It was a privilege and adventure to attend his funeral. We are losing 372 World War II veterans per day.

The adventure began two days before Uncle Nick’s wake with making travel plans with my parents who are 85 and 86 years old. I had to convince them that we needed to travel the 100 miles to the funeral home on the other side of New York City on the afternoon of the wake, then stay overnight at a hotel so we could attend the funeral early the next…