Robert’s Blog

I have been doing a lot of sprint-mini-soul-searching sessions since my father passed away. I think it’s an important time to look back and remember that my father was NEVER there for me, but I turned out ok.

And I made sure I NEVER used my father not being there for me as an excuse. Not only to other people like teachers and family, but also to myself. It’s something very important for all of us to realize that we have our educational, professional, and family (since we probably will all eventually be family-building later in our lives and some of us have already started.) fates in our own hands.

I know it can be hard at times when you feel you need to do everything on your own, because I been there many times. And what I can tell you is I met so many people in my life that had it ten times harder than me, and they did not give up.

There were so many students at Poly, some who came from the ghetto, and worked their ass off and graduated and got professional engineering jobs and moved themselves out. It was not easy, I know some of them actually had to sleep in the library, ducking from security guards, because they could not study in their apartments (in the projects) with gun shots going off down the hallway, or because they lived with their younger brothers and sisters and the small apartment was too noisy.

I know of another person who got his girlfriend pregnant just the second year of college and even though Poly is an extremely difficult school to keep up your grades, he graduated with an EE (Electrical Engineering) degree with a above 3.0 GPA. He was so proud to be able to have his son in his arms when he graduated at Lincoln Center, and be able to use his new Engineering Job to support his young family.

And more personally, lets take a look at Nana, who got a divorce during a time where it was not just Taboo, but something that the Church would still excommunicate you for. She didn’t give up, she took care of her family and had a pretty good life! She was such a strong woman, and definitely an extremely positive and powerful influence in my own life.

And of course there is Nonno. He came from a well-to-do, nicely-dressed Italian family. He came to America for love. Following my Nonna here to this country. He tried to continue the family business of selling hand-made lace, and suits, etc. But the industrialized west that was America, wanted to pump cheap products out of factories instead of by a full town of woman and tradition. He walked the streets of Manhattan looking for work, and walked into a construction site, and asked for work, he told the foreman to let him carry the bags of concrete on his back. He got that job, and since that day he was in construction his entire life. He feed his family of 5 children and bought a beautiful home with that career, and he never looked back at the easy life he had in that small town in Italy.

You have to really put your own life in perspective. Is what I’m going through at this moment really a reason to bitch and moan. Or is just another bump in the road, and I’ll make it through, because not just because I have to, but because I know where I want to go with my life and this shit is not going to stop me!

Look at people you know who have had it harder than you, and think, if they could get over that mountain, how hard could it be to get over this hill standing in my way.

It’s ok to be scared, and it’s ok to fail, but it’s NOT ok to let that fear stop you from trying. And if you do try and fail, again that’s ok, but it’s NOT ok to stop trying to pick yourself up and just stop trying.

If it helps, think about this “If I fail and don’t try again, of the people I wanted to make proud, (alive or dead), what will they think of me. And that’s something I can not bare to face! That’s what I’m really afraid of!” I used this thought to push me forward my entire life. I did not want to make my nonno (grandfather in Italian) disappointed.

Just remember: If Nana or Nonno could do what they did in life, than why can’t I do what I need to do on my own!

-R

Since he passed away a couple of weeks ago, I started to think about our history. Here are some interesting Tidbits about my Dad and me (not in chronological order):

0. My mom and dad separated when I was 1 years old.

1. He used to take me to Toys R Us for a new Matchbox car and lunch at Roy Rogers.

2. We used to take me to Train World under the “L” on McDonald Ave in Brooklyn.

3. He came to my communion (at the Church) in Jeans and my mom yelled at him to go home and get something nice to wear.

4. He moved to Florida and promised to come for visits a few times a year, but it ended up to be once every few years until I was 12.

5. The last time I saw my dad until around the age of 21 was, was at my Confirmation at the age of 12.

6. He also didn’t call much and there was a large gap with no phone calls until one day, when I was 18 he called to tell me “He was happy I was not gay” since he found out I was dating my future wife Paula.

7. When he first moved to Florida, before the phone calls stopped, on my Birthday and Christmas
he would tell me he mailed me my gifts. The never ended up showing up and after weeks I would try calling him back, and when I did reach him, he would say, “they are in the mail” or “they must have gotten lost in the mail”. There must be an entire post office with my own zip code just holding the lost gifts he promised.

8. One time he came to visit from Florida, we fill plastic Easter eggs with vinegar and little taped packets of baking soda. We would shake them up and throw them at each other trying to get the other wet with vinegar when the eggs would pop opened from the foam that would form.

9. Another time he came back to visit, maybe when I was 9 years old, we went to Radio Shack to get some parts for a project I wanted to work on. There was this microchip I needed (an Op Amp 386 chip), and I guess he didn’t want to pay the $3.00 for it, so he started a fight with the guy helping us find the chip in the store (I guess to distract him), and he stole it. When he showed me the chip in his pocket, and I asked how he got it since he did’t pay it, he didn’t answer me. When I told him I didn’t want it, because he stole it, he got pissed and said, “Fine, I’ll just keep it and glue a transistor to it, and make it look like a Microchip Bug!”

10. We used to play with my Matchbox cars on the living room floor at my Nana’s house. He would make ramps out of her books.

11. When he worked as a salesman for a metal distribution company, he brought me a bunch of copper wires, and rods for my projects.

12. When he moved back to NY, and I was living in a condo in NJ, he wanted to visit to take me to lunch one day when I was working from home. He came by and we went to TGI-Friday’s. Over lunch he started talking about how he liked going to Strip Clubs. He said he likes going there with friends and just hang out and talk, and that “And it’s even better to talk to your friend while a naked girl is sitting on your lap.” He said he would like to go to a strip club with me and hang out. Naturally I was a little taken back. Not that I didn’t like strip clubs, just that I thought it would be kind of weird hanging out with my father at one.

13. When he first moved back to NY, I was living in Queens. He called to tell me and asked if he could come over. I said “ok.” Paula was already up in Syracuse studying for her MBA, so it was just me and him. We hung out for a few hours than he went home. It was weird, because it was the first time he visited me that I really wasn’t too excited to see him. I guess I was just tired of everything. Who knew if he wasn’t leaving for Florida tomorrow.

14. After just a few months of living back in NY, he was not happy that I wasn’t opening up to him and coming to see him as much as he wanted. He called me up one night and started screaming at me. I exploded into rage and started screaming back at him telling him how dare he talk to me like this after leaving me as a kid and never even calling. He hung up the phone. We didn’t speak for a couple of months. After that he refused to call me for months at a time because he thought I should be the one calling him.

15. When I was a child he took me to one of the parks on the side of the belt parkway between Toys R Us and the Verrazano, and we used to fly kites. He had this one blue kite that had some tar on it, so he called it the “special trick kite” since the weight imbalance made it fly weird.

16. He once told me someone named “Mr. T-Rex” stole money from him when he tried to start some business in Florida, so that’s why he can’t call or visit, since he didn’t have the money. This might have been believable, but I was like 19 years old… I called him out on this saying “Come on dad, do you think I’m stupid?” He said, “No no it’s the truth…” Whatever right? Even if there was a Mr. T-Rex, maybe a visit was out for now, but phone calls too?

17. When he was supposed to visit when I was 20, I waited with Paula at my mom’s house until 2 in the morning, before giving up and heading to the Vegas diner in Brooklyn and calling it a night.

18. The last I heard from my dad was a voicemail message the day I picked up Paula from the BAR exam. The only words he left on the message were (in a nasty voice): “How could you didn’t visit your aunt?!” I called him back as soon as I heard the message. He didn’t pick up the phone however, so I left a voicemail pretending not to have heard his voicemail, and told him I just saw his missed call and wanted to call him back. I told him, I just picked up Paula from the BAR exam and that we were leaving on our two week vacation, driving across country in two days and to call me back. He never did… He died a week after we got back from vacation.

19. He sent me a birthday gift from Amazon.com in December 2008. He called to ask me if I got it, but I didn’t. At least I didn’t think so. He said it was on the way, and I thought back to all the times he told me “it was in the mail” and it never showed up. I was so pissed that he was trying to play this old game with me when I was a grown man. But it turned out he did send it and it just got mixed up in between my own boxes from Amazon that Paula and I were ordering as Christmas gifts, and didn’t get a chance to open yet.

20. The reason he gave me for having to move down to Florida, was to start a new career, since his business partners up in NY “screwed” him and he wasn’t able to get new clients, being a salesperson. Sounded like a plausible reason to a 7 year old…

21. When I didn’t list him as my father on our Wedding Invitation, he responded with a big “NO” written on the RSVP… But he came to the wedding anyway.

22. He hit on Paula’s cousin at our wedding rehersal dinner.

23. He once called me from Florida when I was 19 and when I asked him to write me an email if it’s too difficult to call me, he said “I’m bad at typing, and don’t like to do it, so no.”

24. He would sometimes call and leave weird sounds on our voicemail and hang up.

I will add more to this list if I have time and as I remember them.

I just want to say that the day I came home from work and heard my father passed away, I walked my dog Lily, before heading to Brooklyn to be with the family. On the walk, I said a pray and said outloud (to my father), “I don’t know what to say. I forgive you. But man were you an asshole. But I forgive you.” I tried to think of what to say and just gave a heavy sigh, shook my head, and said “I don’t have anything else to say…”