February 22, 2009, 5:30 am, the phone rings. I was not awake yet and would not be for another two hours. The phone call, it was an urgent call from my aunt in Long Island, New York. She said that it was about my uncle, from what my dad said anyway. He left the house at around 6:00am so he could get to their house early. At 7:27am, I was woken up by my mom who seemed very upset and my brother, who was crying because of what happened. I asked why I was up so early on a weekend and my mom said, “Michael, your Uncle Tommy, he isn’t feeling so well and is now in a better place”. That was her way of telling my 9-year old self that my uncle had passed away. I didn’t know what that meant, so I really didn’t have any reactions, but I just couldn’t understand why my brother was crying. My mom said that he wanted Uncle Tommy to feel better, even though he wasn’t able to. At about 8:30am, my brother, mom and I left for Long Island to go comfort my cousins and my Aunt Karen. All I remember that day we spent at their house was the amount of crying taking place and the calls we got from their neighbors and other relatives back in Connecticut. They would try and make things better for us, but no one was able to feel better because of how sudden his death was. I was able to tell that something was wrong though. I was the only one who was not always crying or upset and no one else really stopped crying.

Later that night, we all went back to Connecticut and went to visit my Grandma and Grandpa’s house. My other uncle, Uncle Vinny, was also a brother of Tommy. This was probably the only time I would ever see my dad and uncle cry ever. I also started crying because of everyone. I just wanted all the bad and sad things to go away, but they wouldn’t. It was almost as if something bad was just supposed to happen. The weather was horrible. It was dark outside, drizzling, and extremely cloudy. No one should’ve died though. in my mind anyway, my Uncle Tommy could’ve been perfectly fine. The dark clouds and the cold drizzling rain never let any sun into this day, it never let anything good happen to my family today. I never even saw any sun in the morning, it was dark when I woke up. This is because morning are supposed to be happy, they are the start of a new day and you never know what will happen. This wasn’t the start of a new day, this was the start of the worst day ever. At around 9:00pm after everyone started to get going, my brother, father, mother, and I left and went back to our house, to conclude this tragic day. When we got home, my dad went straight to bed and didn’t even talk to anyone. I guess this is how he decided to cope with his brothers death.
The next day we woke up early. We had church at 9:30am. This wasn’t an ordinary mass, it was a special mass for the remembrance of Thomas Gianni. This was the only way to gather all of my family members in one place. The church was packed with my relatives. We sat through the mass, very quiet, and listened to all the speeches that my family members gave about him. They were all very sad and the person giving the speech would cry or tear up during it. Everyone was wearing black clothing and everyone was sobbing because no one knew how quickly things could change for the worst.

After the 1 hour mass was over, we went to the bottom floor of the church where Patty Cakes was serving breakfast. I remember having egg pizza and chocolate milk while everyone else discussed this upsetting event. We went to my grandparents house again after breakfast to comfort them. We spent the day there until the wake, which was that night at approximately 6:00pm. At the wake, there were even more people than at the mass. This time they came from my Aunt Karen’s side of the family. My cousins, brother, and I tried having fun by playing games around the place, but that didn’t really work. Within the next week or so, we received some information from the doctor’s that we never thought would be possible. After the autopsy of his body, they found out that he had diabetes. He didn’t know about it, since there weren’t any symptoms except for fatigue. The only reason we didn’t notice that is because he slept for most of the day when he was alive. My uncle had diabetes for about 3 months, since a little before Christmas. The doctor said that since he wasn’t able to get the right medication or treat this problem correctly, the virus was able to tear apart the inside of his body until he wasn’t able to breathe or function right anymore. After this all happened and now everyone was able to continue on with their lives. Every year we have a special mass on the Sunday of the week he died to commemorate the loss of Thomas Gianni. It was now clear to me, that he, my uncle, would be gone forever and would not be seen again.