Photo: Google Images–http://giftofsleepconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/father-holding-newborn-baby.jpg. Enhanced by Renae Bowman
Angelina Fitzpatrick was the daughter of Maria Teresa Romano and Terrence Michael Fitzpatrick. She was the eldest of the couple’s eight children, born on Christmas Day 1990. While her parents officially christened her, Angelina Maria Teresa., from the moment Terrance saw his firstborn child, he called her his, “Angel.”
Every year on Angelina’s birthday, her father would envelop her in a bear hug, twirl her around the room and whisper in her ear, “Happy Birthday my sweet Angel. Only the most special are born on Christmas.” It was her most cherished memory of her da.
Terrence worked for a dredging company that traveled the Great Lakes three weeks out of every month. On week four, upon docking at his home port of Buffalo, his practiced pattern was to embark on a drinking binge financed by his amassed fortune of three weeks salary. Yet he always made it home by Saturday night to sober up, have Maria wash his dirty laundry, and return to work on Monday.
Time and again, Terrence promised his long-suffering wife that he would bring home his paycheck in one piece, but the demon drink would never allow it. Left with no options, Maria took on work as a seamstress for one of Buffalo’s finest dress shops. Having learned needlework from her dressmaker grandmother, Maria became an artist with a needle and thread. Eventually her reputation attracted clients from across the city, all of whom were willing to pay the highest price for her beautifully-sewn creations.
Maria’s absence from home meant one thing for Angelina: she now had to assume the care of her seven siblings. On her tenth birthday, while the family celebrated their Christmas with paltry presents of fruit and nuts and a meager meal of pasta and bread, Maria pulled her daughter aside and told her the facts of life. Since their father could not support them, their survival demanded that Maria work and Angelina transform herself from child to parent.
By the age of 12, the devoted child knew how to cook, clean, cure childhood illnesses, monitor school work, punish wrongdoings and reward good behavior. Monday through Saturday when Maria returned home after long hours of cutting and sewing, she had no praise for her eldest daughter for a job well done; only expressions of exhaustion and words of disappointment. The hard-working woman had no energy for anything else.
On every fourth Saturday as Terrence stumbled home, Angelina cared for her father as well. She wrestled with conflicting emotions of compassion and hatred as they waged war in her heart over the man she called Papa.
One Friday afternoon a representative from the dredging company knocked at The Fitzpatrick’s door. Angelina could still envision the heavyset man standing awkwardly in the threshold, explaining that her father had fallen overboard, landing face down in a particularly deep area of sludge they had been dredging. Due to the strong lake currents, by the time they rescued him he had suffocated to death. The man finished his pronouncement by stating that the company was sorry for her family’s loss, and asking where he should deliver her dead father’s body.
That Sunday the Fitzpatrick family buried Terrence at St. Patrick’s Cemetery. Other than the cost of his wooden casket, his death made little difference in his their lives.
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By the time Angelina turned 25, Frankie, the youngest of her siblings, was living on his own---working full time at Syzmanski’s Food Mart. The rest of the family was equally well-established in their own lives, evidencing her success in raising them all. Now the house was empty, save for her mother and herself.
Angelina felt lost. For 15 years her life’s focus had been to take care of the household and her siblings. Now that they no longer needed her, life seemed empty and a little frightening. Until Frankie came to her rescue.
Her brother set up a job interview for her with Mr. Syzmanski’s son, Eddie Jr.. The burgeoning entrepreneur was opening a discount liquor and wine business in Jensen’s old auto showroom. He needed someone to organize inventory and keep track of stock. When she filled out the job application she wrote “Angela” as her name, hoping that with a new identity might come a new and better life.
Five years later, Angela Fitzpatrick held the title of head wine agent for Syzmanski’s Liquor Emporium. Through family connections and savvy business practices, Eddie Jr had grown the business exponentially, expanding it throughout the United States. In the process, “Angie,” as her co-workers called her, had become acknowledged within the competetive wine business as a connoisseur.
Her latest achievement had been a trip to Eastern Europe to tour the flourishing Georgia vineyards. She led her American counterparts in the importation of the newly-popular wines and received industry-wide acclaim for her discriminating palate and foresight.
It was that visionary success that led to her upcoming excursion to France. Moet and Chandon had officially invited “Ms. Fitzpatrick” to their vineyards, located outside of Paris, for an exclusive event sampling of their newest champagne grapes. The trip was completely at Moet’s expense and Angelina would be one a select group of honored guests. The whirlwind trip had her departing Buffalo on Christmas Eve, ringing in the New Year in Paris and returning home on New Year’s Day.
Then, without warning, her dream trip began to disintegrate.
As she was packing the night before her flight, she received a phone call from a nurse at Buffalo General. Maria had suffered a stroke while fitting a pattern and had been rushed to the hosptial where she now lay unconscious in the Intensive Care Unit.
Angelina felt a simmering anger and resentment over her mother’s condition. While she loved Maria, she also understood the seriousness of the situation and knew she would be the one expected to take responsibility for her care. While sitting in the ICU watching her mother’s shallow breaths, she felt trapped. She saw no future, only a return to the past. Once again she would take on the role of caregiver, this time becoming a parent to her parent. The spectre felt devastating.
The next morning, whether by plan or by chance, Maria quietly suffered another stroke and died.
Angelina and her seven brothers and sisters gathered on Christmas, her 30th birthday, to mourn the passing of their mother. The following afternoon they buried her in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in a grave next to Terrence. After a noon meal together at the house, they said their good-byes and returned to their individual lives, leaving Angelina to quietly sort through her thoughts in the space where she had spent her entire life.
She wandered down the hall to her mother’s bedroom. The sweet scent of her favorite rose toilet water lingered in the air. Angelina picked up her mother’s prayer book from the bedside table. Maria had faithfully read prayers she knew by heart every night before going to sleep. The sacred book had been given as a wedding gift by her grandmother. It was the only family heirloom to so honor the Romano-Fitzpatrick union.
The book’s leather cover and binding were cracked and crumbling. The gold edging worn from the pages. Yet what Angelina saw inside the front cover was something she had never before noticed. It was an envelope postmarked Detroit. The date: Dec. 24, 2006. The unfamiliar handwriting read, Miss Angel Fitzpatrick.
Angelina’s confused mind tried to grasp exactly what it was she held in her hand. She wondered why she had never before seen this 14-year-old letter? As her knees folded, she sank to the edge of her mother’s bed, Slowly, her fingers began to probe the envelope for answers to her questions.
The paper she withdrew from within was thick and yellowed with age. She searched both sides for words of explanation, finding none. Putting the puzzling pieces back together, Angelina suddenly noticed something else inside the envelope.
Wedged in the corner was a small gold-toned heart adorned with a pink ribbon of a hue suggesting the most tender of feelings. On one side there was an inscription that read, “To My Angel 12/25/90. On the other side “Love, papa,” was engraved.
Angelina found the following moments inconceivable. Her spinning mind wondered why her father chose to remember her 16th birthday? Why she never received his gift? Why her mother had seemingly concealed the locket from her all these years?
Her questions rang out unanswered. There was no one to explain the delicate piece of jewelry, or anything else in her life. No one to justify the stolen years of her childhood. No one to offer thanks for her devotion to her brothers and sisters. No one to take pride and praise her career achievements. She was simply, alone.
Angela remained on her mother’s bed trying to make sense of her discovery, eventually crumpling onto her side and falling into a fitful sleep. Hours later she awoke to a stream of sunlight breaking through the blinds of the bedroom window. Both her mind and her body felt numb.
As she tried to recall the night before, she felt the heart still in her hand, now embedded into her palm. She again examined the engraving and the satin ribbon. The discovery of the long-delayed and unexpected birthday gift continued to deliver aftershocks of doubt, suspicion and anger through her mind.
At the same time, the delicate piece of jewelry also generated another strong emotion within Angelina, one she felt swelling slowly as she reread the inscriptions. It was a sense of love she had not experienced or trusted since her childhood. A memory of a time in her life when she was the apple of her mother’s eye and the holder of her father’s heart. It was a startling yet soothing recollection of a time of happiness and peace.
As she left her mother’s bedroom and walked down the hallway to her room, she tied the pink ribbon around her neck. The precious gold metal against her skin could not erase the years of pain and disappointment she had endured. Yet the constant feel of the heart close to her own was a cherished gift no amount of money could ever buy.
Changing into fresh clothes, she finished packing her valise for her rescheduled Paris trip. Taking one last look around she imprinted the details of the tiny house into her memory. It was only the impatient beeping of the airport shuttle’s horn that moved Angela out of the past and into the present.
Hurrying to the front door with coat and gloves in hand, she crossed the threshold into the blinding wintry morning sunshine. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. From within the recesses of her being she heard the familiar sound of her father’s soft whisper,
“Happy Birthday, My sweet Angel. Only the most special are born on Christmas.”
