He went fighting. That is not a surprise. Not to me. Not to anyone that really knew him. The Doctors said he was not a candidate for the surgery. He said he was. He did not say what he really thought. “Who died and made you God? Who are you to say I am not worth a few more months of living? Who says I am going go without a fight? Not me, Bozo. So shut up and operate. You have no idea who I am.”
He would have said it years earlier. He mellowed. By his standards at least. I hadn’t seen for a few decades. The first time I met him when was I was fifteen. He was an Uncle to the girl I was dating. The girl that calls me husband almost forty years later. Back then, she merely cautioned me about her Uncle’s. Mo, Billy, and Richie. After meeting them, they seemed more like Moe, Larry, and Curly. In hindsight, they were merely being Uncles. Uncles from New Jersey by way of New York. Uncles that played to the audience and had fun being lovable stooges. Men that were more boys at the time and more men for being boys at the time.
Richie died the other day. The last of the three to go. Billy was the first. My favorite Richie memory involved Billy. It was when Billy joined the Elks and found his other brothers from different mothers in that fraternity. Billy invited us all to an Elks function. A 50s dance when the music was pretty new at being oldies. Billy cautioned us. Especially Richie. “Be nice. Don’t be an idiot, Don’t embarrass me. Especially at Sacred Hour.” Sacred hour came and our table was right under the all hallowed clock that everyone faced when the Sacred Hour, ten o’clock for us mere mortals, was honored. The clock bonged to the silent and reverent crowd as a ritual took place with us pretty much on the altar, Elk wise. Richie thanked us for being nice. He did not thank Richie later when Richie played with the clock and got it to bong at the not so sacred hour of 1;12, right in the middle of “La Bamba”. Richie was like that.
I knew it from the start. After all, he greeted me with an open mouth kiss when he met me the first time. In front of all the relatives. I kissed him back and bent into his embrace. Richie was Offense, meeting the family wise, and I scored a goal with his tongue in my mouth.
He and I talked a few times after that. Just a few. Enough though for me to know his free spirit. He lived life in ways others only imagined. He loved his family in ways few knew and even fewer understood. Richie was as different as they come. The Doctors had not idea who they said was not a candidate for surgery. Maybe he just should have kissed them. Then they might have understood this was a man who lived with every breath he took.
Rest in Peace, Rich.
Love and Kisses,
Gil
Richard Dean July 22, 1939-June 18, 2010
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