Big Pappy

We have been grieving the loss of Pappy for the last week; I feel the empty void very clearly. He was the head of our family and he's no longer here, which is so hard for me to grasp. I guess I never thought about what it would be like when he was no longer here, because he's always been such a big part of my life. I am so sad for you-- that you won't have him around-- to snuggle up to, to hear his stories, to learn from.

I will miss that man everyday for the rest of my life. I wonder if you will even remember him. I want to make sure that you don't forget.

Of course he loved his grandchildren, but he was crazy about his great grandchildren. He always made a bee-line for you when he walked in the door. He regularly bragged about you to people he met. He truly believed you would become President someday!

I am so thankful that he was my Pappy, and your "Big Pappy" as you liked to call him. Not everyone is lucky enough to get to meet their great grandpa, and spend all of the time together that you were able to. He was a man with no regrets-- because he got to meet you and love you!

I don't ever want to forget all of the fun memories with him so that I can retell the stories to you, too. He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts on June 9, 1930 to Antoinette and Joseph Cuomo. His mom was a seamstress and his dad was a baker at Nabisco. When his family moved to Pittsburgh, he lived on Hedge Street in Lincoln-Lemington. He played football for Westinghouse High School - and he would tell you that, back then, they would never, ever dance in the endzone when they scored a touch down. He was drafted into the Army -- only after switching places with a guy in line. He served in the Korean War as a member of the Honor Guard where he spent his service years in Germany. He was always on the search for beer just like he had in Germany, and it's one of my regrets that we never did find him a cold one.

Back when he had hair, he would let Tina and I play hairdresser on him and do all sorts of silly things with his hair like making it stick straight up in the air. After school, I would sit on his lounge chair and he would quiz me on what I learned that day and we had a little trivia game going called "Ask Me a Question, Pap-PY". When I was a kid, he would let me play in the back of his work van, which had all sorts of saws and sharp things and broken pieces of ceramic tile-- totally dangerous but totally fun. He was just carefree enough to let me do that and let me drink coffee when I was 11 or 12. But he could be tough, too-- someday when you are much older, I will tell you the story of when he caught Aunt Jenny and I drinking margaritas in Fogieville! He loved Frank Sinatra, drinking Dago red and cooking. Some of his most famous dishes were Pappy pizza (with rapini on top), stuffed artichokes and eggplant rollatini. As you grow older, I can't wait to sit and tell you stories about how funny and kind and stoic your Big Pappy was.

For now, though, we have to wrap Nunni in all of the love that he provided for her in the 66 years that they were married. We can look at photos together and remember all of the sweet times that you had with him for the first 2 years of your life. I told you that even though we can't hear him anymore, we can always talk to him -- just this morning, you "called" him from his old duck phone and sang "No More Monkeys." He would have got such a kick out of that.

I'm comforted by the fact that you brought him so much joy in the last few years of his life, it just feels like 2 years was - in no way - enough time...