z and uncle t

zeee, my man. what's happenin', buddy?

this was the refrain every time uncle tony came to visit. he was always upbeat. just like my boy. he visited us often and loved to hold my boy in his lap, which, with its pillowy belly as a backrest, was much more comfy than mine. maybe that's why he and my little bald baby became such fast friends. they shared an ornery streak too. i caught uncle tony sneaking too many peanut butter balls to my willing toddler at our christmas party last year, a sugary surreptitious act sealing their affinity.

uncle tony was actually anthony, a cousin—my dad's first, my second, and z's third—but he insisted that my boy call him "uncle." and so it was. i had an uncle tony too: anthony's father, who teased me throughout my teenage years about my imaginary towhead boyfriend. (no respectable italian girl would have a "snuffy" boy courting her, mind you.) i smile imagining how old uncle tony would've reacted to my (surprisingly) towheaded newborn two years ago.

the above photo is from the first summer of z's life. he's now about four months' worth of now i lay me down to sleep from his third, a summer which will hold an empty place at our fourth of july picnic table and my birthday dinner: uncle tony won't be with us.

my son's first experience with great loss has come at an age where he knows only the pure joy of love and none of the sorrow. surrounded by smiles and hugs from strangers, he didn't know he was at a funeral home last sunday. he sat on the floor in the back of the room and showed his new friends his favorite toy from my purse—a magnetic bracelet whose parts repelling and attracting each other never cease to thrill.

on the way out, i picked up my 30+ pound sack of potatoes and showed him the framed photo of uncle tony where he was happiest—surrounded by family and in his green apron, fresh from cooking chicken wings and pasta alfredo (made especially for me, the family's only non-carnivore) at his party last september.

i pointed and asked, "who is that?" wondering if my boy would know. as his eyes crinkled up into a smile, in that telltale way that makes his face finally resemble mine, he answered in the punctuated, inflected syllables of toddler-speak: un-cle to-ny! 

and we both left smiling, an homage to the man who always did the same.

z "yuvs" you, uncle tony. you will be missed.