"Pat Scaramuzza is my cousin."
When I was just a boy in West Philadelphia, simply saying those words would fill me with a pride that everyone knew was deserved. It has been understood that Pat was always someone with a quiet comanding spirit. Generous with his warmth and always in the lead in any situation which he chose to be a part. I remember being confronted with a conflict over the posession of this gift of being "related to Pat" One of my classmates and I had decided to do our homework together and as I entered his home there was a photograph that I was familiar with. It was the Scaramuzzas, on Alphonse Spinelli's wall or mantle. Where ever it was I had to ask as any 12 year old might. "Why do you have that picture." Alphonse responded, with that same pride I had always felt, with
"Pat Scaramuzza is my cousin."
Of course the confusion was like a "triple dog dare" to prove this fact. We had never been told that we both had the same cousins nor did we fully accept the concept that we could do so without being cousins. Although we eventually realized that Alphonse's mother was 'our 'Uncle Vince's sister and my father was 'our'Aunt Mary's brother, just the ability to say that statement with "2 ours" was enough to make us feel like cousins. Certainly we both had an equal right to that banner of extreme pride.
"Pat Scaramuzza is my cousin."
To say that I really know much more than that is a point of disappoitment in myself. You see Pat was 10 years my senior. That fact is one that I just recently determined in a short faceless 'conversation' on the internet. We even discussed how huge 10 years was in the short young portion of our lifespans we were in any sort of close proximity. Such a short amount of time later I heard that he had passed away that I actually gasped for breath and had to call my other cousins to find out if what I simply did not wish to believe was true.
I know that Pat will be missed by his family and his broad circle of friends but I am going to feel diminished and somewhat less comfortable with now having to say
"Pat Scaramuzza was my cousin."
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