September 19th, 2022

Good Morning Folks,

First of all I would like to thank the hundreds of people who sent greetings, salutations, advice and words of encouragement. Since last Monday I have been at the Jewish Home of Rochester receiving great care and physical therapy twice daily. The progress has been slow but every day seems to be a bit better. Sensation is coming back to my extremities and I believe I am on the road, albeit long, to full recuperation. That has some qualifications. I don’t expect to be playing tennis or basketball anytime soon but I’m hoping to at least be able to walk with a cane and support myself without pain….and travel. This may take up to six months. What we are trying to do is get the nervous system to reconnect once again, relying more on physical exercise than medication. 

I had many visitors during the first week and enjoyed the company of my wife, my children, brothers, sisters and friends. One visit, in particular, really stood out. My oldest daughter Kara came to visit me on the spur of the moment Thursday night. We were having a nice chat about her kids, family, her husband Mike, who’s had several similar surgeries and just life in general…. then the phone rang. On the other end of line was my youngest daughter Grace. She said only six words…and I dropped my phone and started to weep uncontrollably. Most of you know that I have five kids well spread out over 25 years. They are all unique characters and all follow their own path. Now over the past three years two of my children have not spoken to each other. They have avoided each other because of something someone said or someone insinuated or a bad look or a poorly chosen Facebook post. I don’t really know or care what it was, but they had not spoken in three years and this is something that I am well acquainted with.

Growing up in the 1960s my father and his siblings didn’t speak as a family for nearly twenty years. No one really even knows what started it. A bad business deal, a bad word, a slighted friend… it didn’t matter they just didn’t talk and as a result the cousins never really got to know each other on a personal basis until much much later, as adults. Similarly, in my mother’s family, her siblings did not talk for 10 years feuding over simple misunderstandings. It robbed us cousins of the interactions that we had had since growing up. Feuds are terrible things, but this is not a story about feuds…. this is a story about baseball.

When Grace was still in the womb she had already begun a tough personality. She did not want to come out. She was overdue one week, then two weeks…then three weeks. We tried everything we could. Every home remedy, everything the midwife could suggest but nothing seemed to coax her to enter the world. The night before she was born I looked at Julie and I said." let’s go to a baseball game". Well, whether it was baseball or the large sausage sandwich with everything on it….that next morning Grace entered the world as the tiger she still is. I was convinced it was baseball that brought her forth. On this past Thursday night Grace attended the Rochester Red Wings baseball game, with her wonder dog Penny. It was "bark in the park". By the same token my son Jay decided at the last minute to take our wonder grandson, Rocco John, to the baseball game one last time this season. Of course, as circumstance would have it, they unexpectedly and astonishingly bumped into each other. Without saying anything they hugged, embraced and caught up on the past three years. Nothing needed to be said, no apologies, no rehashing… just love. The six words that Grace had to me said over the phone, "Jay and I have made up!". My eyes are still welled-up as I’m writing this. It brought tears of happiness that I hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.

Now there’s another reason I’m telling the story. The next morning when the physical therapist came in and got me started with the activities she said to me, "You seem to have made it considerable improvement overnight! There’s a direction in your step and more lightness in your feet. You are really making progress!" 

And that’s the truth of it.

Sincerely,

John Bernunzio

Barrese tenace e forte!

And the final visit on Sunday evening….