It wasn’t until we were waiting for my father to die that my mother told me the story of how they came to be married.
They had seen each other socially a few times when Harry went to pick up Claire where she was living with my four future siblings. It was basically a one-room cabin on Spring Lane in Stoneham. My old friend Michael Mucci lives there now, by himself, and probably finds it cramped.
The roof leaked, and the heat was sporadic. There was ice on the floor. My father looked around and said, “We have to get married, I gotta get you people out of here.”
Not the most romantic of proposals. Then again, maybe it was. You need to know, this was a man who once signed an anniversary card, “Love, Harry Melkonian.”
Shortly thereafter my Dad, a 30-year old sheltered mamma’s boy who still lived in the home of his birth, bought a house and moved in with 5 strangers (four of whom were female).
Dad had a stroke in May of ’98. When they started talking about amputations, Mom and I decided to stop his dialysis and let him go. My man-about-town Dad wasn’t going to end up in the remains of a speechless body being fed apple sauce by strangers.
As he lay dying, staring off into who-knows-what, I told Dad how proud I was to be his son. I like to think he heard me.
Father’s Day June 16, 2019