How's it been five years already?

Back after the weekend. It was a good weekend. Friday was April 17, which marked the five-year anniversary of my grandmother passing away. I'm just going to warn you right now -- this is going to be a long entry. Makes me feel better to write.

My aunt was visiting for a few days because she was here recruiting a couple girls at the AAU basketball tournament in the area. I think she put it best when she said, "It's crazy because it hasn't seemed like five years, but I feel like I haven't seen her in 20."

You never truly get over the death of someone so close to you. You learn to live with it. You learn not to let it affect your daily life, but you never truly get over it. At least I haven't.

It's been eight and a half years since my grandfather died -- my dad's dad. He was the first person who I'd really consider to be a close family member who died. I never really knew the others in our family like that.

I still crack open a Rolling Rock (his favorite drink) twice a year for him -- on his birthday (April 28) and the day he passed away (Oct. 10). Now I crack open an ice cold can of Coke (Grandma Rosie's favorite drink) on her birthday and the day she passed away.

I've got a framed picture of her in the kitchen here -- it's where she'd want to be, no doubt about it. The first thing she did when you walked into her house was hug you. The second thing she did was offer you something to eat.

There was no turning her down. She was no taller than 4'10" and couldn't have weighed more than 90 lbs, but there was no denying her. She was a force of nature.

To see her was to know her first two passions: her family and food. You see, in an Italian family, food is love. And she cooked up enough love for many, many lifetimes.

To talk to her was to know her other three passions: Seton Hall women's basketball (her daughter Phyllis, my aunt, is the coach), New York Yankees baseball and New York Knicks basketball.

So many of my memories of her are tied with sports, and I am how I am with sports because of her, no doubt. Yelling at the television wasn't just accepted, it was expected. It's what we did. It's what we still do, and it all started with her. The insane passion my family has for sports is not something you can believe until you see it.

Only in my family did a Yankees' game constitute a family reunion. We'd all huddle around the table full of great food like lasagna and antipasto with the game on in the background. We'd yell at the television, we'd yell at each other and we all loved it.

She loved her sports. She was probably the only person in the Tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut who would watch a Knicks' game on television in prime time and then stay up until 3 a.m. just to watch the replay to argue with the refs again.

One of my earliest memories is of sitting in Walsh Gym as a toddler watching my aunt coach Seton Hall. Sitting next to my grandma chewing on some Wrigley's Spearmint gum because she knew I loved that the most, yelling at anything I could. I didn't know why. But Grandma was yelling at a guy named "Ref" so I was going to do the same. I don't even know at how many referees we screamed, "Go lose yourself."

Sunday afternoons were often spent on Seton Hall's campus watching the women's basketball games. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

We traveled to quite a few places to watch Aunt Phyllis and her team in the Big East conference tournaments. I remember that Sheraton Hotel in Hartford, Conn., with Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Pete, and how amazed I was at the crowd that was at the University of Connecticut for a women's basketball game.

I remember her coming over to baby-sit, which was really our code for playing cards (Go Fish was our favorite game), drinking lots of Coke and watching the Knicks until what was likely way past my bedtime.

Grandma Rosie helped teach her grandchildren to read with box scores in the Newark-Star Ledger. I knew Don Mattingly's batting average before I could spell most words.

I remember begging to go spend the night at my grandparents' house. That always meant a big bowl of canned, diced peaches, one of my favorite desserts, and lots of baseball on television.

Even right up until the end of her life, she was still all about sports. She went into the hospital at the end of March 2004, which was right around the same time as the start of baseball season. One of the only things she wanted in her hospital room was a radio so she could listen to Yankee games.

It was a whirlwind few weeks there at the end. Needless to say, we flew up to N.J. to see her in the hospital. I'll never forget spending that day in the hospital, seeing her in the critical care unit with the breathing machines that beeped and screamed every time she tried to cough.

But I'll also never forget the look of contentment on her face when she had her children and grandchildren around her bed, squeezing all our hands close to her.

We thought we were saying goodbye to her that day. But she somehow pulled through and lasted another few weeks. She kept improving. On April 16, I remember talking to my parents about how the doctors were talking about getting her out of critical care and into another room. She protested for her slippers and her robe, and we were making plans to modify my grandparents' house so she wouldn't have to climb stairs as much.

The next day she was gone -- a massive heart attack taking her so quickly she never knew it was there.

And that was that. Nothing's been the same since. I still expect her to walk down the stairs when we're at my grandparents' house. I still expect to see her sitting in the kitchen when I open the door for the first time. I probably always will.

It's been five years now, and soon, it'll be five more. That's the way it goes. Nothing to do but remember her and treasure when she appears in my dreams.

Anyway, if you read this far, major props to you. If you didn't, I don't blame you one bit. This entry was more for me than anything else. Next time, I'll update with happier material, don't worry!

Laaaater,
-BG