Originally published in March of 2013 in Inside Tucson Business newspaper.
I wrote this right after our dad passed away. Appropriately, I like to revisit it and share around Father's Day.
A harsh alarm buzzes in his ear. He rolls over. The clock reads 3:15 a.m. He rolls out of bed and starts his routine getting ready for work. At 4 a.m. he’s in the car, turns the radio on to Al “Jazzbeaux” Collins on WNEW, then pilots his Oldsmobile Toronado toward the Belt Parkway making his way to the Brooklyn Terminal Market.
It’s a frigid January morning as he pulls in next to the family business in which he is a partner. They have been selling domestic wholesale goods and importing tasty goods from Europe for decades. His day is full filling orders for supermarkets and restaurants all over the Brooklyn area. It is a day of constant lifting, carrying and toting heavy boxes of a variety of goods.
This happens all day in a variety of unheated warehouses. The temperature outside barely gets above 31 degrees and his knees are killing him. The routine goes on for about 12 hours a day and usually six days a week. They’ve opened the place on Saturdays, but at least they get close at 2 p.m.
The pain in his knees is not from an old football injury. He has been diagnosed with a severe case of osteoarthritis that feels like he’s being jabbed by someone with a sharp knife. As the years have worn on, the throbbing pain will travel up through his hips and vertebrae. This would be excruciating pain for someone with an office job, but it is doubly debilitating in the cold environs of a wholesale food market, just minutes from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
He gets on the phone in the afternoon and deals with a variety of suppliers here and across the sea. He is ordering barrels of olives, bacala (salted cod), olive oil and Perugina candies from Italy. He then tackles an incoming delivery of 90-pound forms of Aurrichio provolone storing them away in a huge walk-in refrigerator.
The day continues with the constant moving of heavy boxes. Vendor shipments coming in and customers with their orders heading out the door. Each move is a new dagger in the knees and back. Each dagger hurts a little bit more than the one before.
The traffic isn’t too bad going to work at 5 a.m. Trying to escape Brooklyn for home in Nassau County at 6 p.m. the traffic can be “H, E, Double toothpicks”! The trip in that took 40 minutes takes almost an hour and a half the other direction. The Belt Parkway can resemble a parking lot during the evening rush.
He gets off at Shelter Rock Road exit and navigates his way up the hill to the local high school and parks the car. He pays his $2 admission fee, walks around the end of a basketball court and sidles next to the love of his life. He then watches his oldest boy, Joseph, finish the night getting 18 points and nine rebounds against rival Garden City High. For the first time today, he is truly enjoying himself.
They get home and his wife heats up some leftover baked ziti and this family of four goes over what happened that day. Yes, the family sat at the same table in those days and shared the good and the bad of the day.
After dinner, he slogs up the stairs, takes a shower and puts some Ben-Gay on his knees and neck. He didn’t know it then, but years later the doctors would install two artificial knees and a new hip. His one lifelong solace, especially later in life, would be reading. He always finished his night with at least 15 minutes of a good book before nodding off.
He couldn’t go to bed too late, there’s was that 3:15 a.m. alarm.
He did this for years without too much complaint. This routine, combined with his debilitating arthritis, led him down a path of lingering pain and increasing immobility. One problem led to another, but he would rarely complain about it to anyone except his wife. Whenever the two grandchildren visited it seemed the pain would vanish for at least a moment, but the family knew better.
The path of pain ended Feb. 28, 2013. In a dark and still hospital room, he closed his eyes and his soul ascended to his Lord.
He was the most selfless man I ever knew. He was an amazing friend, husband, dad and grandfather.
His name was Robert DeSimone. He’s my dad. I am glad he is no longer in pain, but I miss the hell out of him.
Thanks for everything, Dad.
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