Here's to Joe

I've been spending the past couple of days looking for his photo. The one where Joe is laying on top of his bed in his one room apartment. He had an English looking hat on, as I recall, and he was smiling his big old Joe smile that would make you just want to laugh too. In the photo, his smelly cat, Ramey, who was as equally old as Joe, was sitting by his side. I couldn't find this photo, but I'm remembering Joe tonight.

Joe was born in the 1920's to a relatively loving Italian family in Quincy, MA. But during his toddlerhood, he fell down a set of stairs and broke his back. He wasn't given much hope for recovery, much less survival, so his mother sent him away to live in a tuberculosis hospital. Joe lived in the hospital for years and was told he'd never walk again. His growth was somewhat stinted (he only ended up to be about 5 feet tall). Joe also had a pacemaker and only one kidney, but Joe stunned the doctors over time and became fully healed. Joe took a job as a laborer in the water department in the City of Quincy, the only job he ever had, where he worked for over 35 years until he retired. It was at that time that I met Joe.

I worked for the City in the Personnel Dept. My focus was retirees and coordinating their health benefits. Joe came in and needed help in finding doctors and general direction. I loved his sense of humor and his bluntness right away, and over time, a friendship was formed between us.

Joe never married or had children. He only had Ramey his cat. He didn't have much, but he used his savings to buy himself a Lexus, his lifelong dream. Joe wanted people to envy him for something, I suppose. I did various things to help Joe out. I shovelled his driveway in the winter, made doctor's appointments for him and checked up on him frequently. I helped him organize his paperwork and buy turkey for his cat. One time, I recalled he had the gout in his foot and was laid up. I went to see him and, in examining his foot, I accidentally banged it with my arm, causing him severe pain, as he shouted out to let me know it! It was one of those things where you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But I'll never forget it...

Joe worried a lot and had a way of getting me "on the bandwagon" with him. He kind of felt like the world was out to get him. He had caller ID and jumped to conclusions, always thinking someone was out to swindle him, including his doctors and his family. But he trusted me, which was nice. Joe and I enjoyed going to his favorite Italian restaurant a few towns over, where they had smooth spaghetti sauce, just like his mama made, so he said. He had to have it that way...

Then I moved to Colorado and then to Alabama, and slowly I lost touch with Joe. My Mom took over "care" of him when I left, checking up on him and having him over to her house now and then. But I just found out that Joe passed away in April. Joe was in his 80's. His cat had died a year or two before that... I was sad when I found out. Joe was a good man, who made the most of the life given to him. He always managed to use his charm to get other people to help him. It worked on me! So tonight I'm remembering an old friend, a person who holds a piece of history in my life. Here's to you, Joe!