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Keeping track of her age by the number of the Super Bowl. "I'm the same age as the Super Bowl, dad!" Sometimes I used to call her "George." When I did, she'd answer, "Yes, Fred." Going with us for a Christmas tree in Clarence, or West Seneca, or East Aurora, or Warsaw, and even Auburn, NY. Standing by her choice while we looked for the "right" tree. Kibitzing: "That's too tall, that one's kind of brown, what about this one?" Helping cut the tree down and drag it out of the woods. Her mental strength and courage. If Angela had pain, whether it was a tooth-ache, kidney stone, or major surgery, she never shed a tear. When she had her wisdom teeth pulled, it didn't stop her from playing hockey the same night. She also played on the same day she had plantar warts removed from her foot. Hearing her talk of her studies at college. Her obvious love of working in the lab at Nazareth. The funny way she held a pen when she wrote, with her hand sort of scrunched, and her refusal to "hold it right". Her sketches: of specimens or cells; or animals; or favorite people, like Lucille Ball, or our friend John Gugino; or even of herself. Marking pens and Crayola crayons. Her commencement at Nazareth on a beautiful, sunny summer day in 1988. Her mom and I, Angelo, and our friend Valerie Sobowiec, and Angela's "Grammy" Mary Bongiovanni and "auntie" Isabel Conrad looking on. A smile as bright as the sunshine. My tears, when I visited her first apartment in Auburn, finally realizing she was grown. Her squeals of "Mommy!" and "Daddy!" when she hadn't seen us for a while. Once, when she was describing herself to me, she quoted "Sesame Street": "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not the same." - "That's me, Dad." With me on my business trip to Jacksonville, eating coconut shrimp. Coming back from a trip to Florida with her mom, both of them red as lobsters. Playing football catch with me on the beach in front of our cottage at Crystal Beach. Angela throwing a perfect spiral to me, or "hiking" the ball and then flying over the sand to make spectacular catches. Walking the beach to the Buffalo Canoe Club, checking out the "golden" lawn chairs in the high-rent district. No walk was complete until she had "trespassed" on the private club's dock. How she loved watching "Its a Wonderful Life", "Meet me in St. Louis", "Gone With the Wind", "Gumby", and "I Love Lucy". Her favorite performers - Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Aretha Franklin, Mary Tyler Moore, Karen Carpenter. Her friend Kelly Scammell recalls how Angela loved to soak up the sun - somehow, she even did passive things with intensity; how, when people saw the scar from her kidney surgery, she'd tell them that it was a shark bite; and that the "Y" in her name stood for her mom's favorite color, yellow (it isn't). Kelly says people used to tell Angela she had chocolate on her lip (a freckle). |
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