“One Final Thought”
As everything in life has its own expiration date, so does this autobiography. But before I close the final chapter, I need to talk about someone very special, someone I truly believe my mom sent to me at a time when I was running on fumes, worn down, and just about ready to throw in the towel. Her name is Lisa Marie. I call her my Angel.
We met while I was working at the Island House Hotel. She came on board right when I was the manager, and from the moment she walked in, something just clicked. Sometimes you meet a person, and you know - not hope, not guess, but know that it was meant to be.
She's a beautiful Italian soul from Jersey, spent some time in the Midwest, loud in all the right ways, warm in all the others, with a family that could’ve been swapped with mine and no one would’ve noticed. We’d shared stories about cooking, our dads, our moms, our holiday chaos, and every time, we’d end up laughing because the similarities were uncanny. Same recipes. Same pizzelles. Same traditions. Same family arguments that always ended with someone yelling, “Mangia!”
It felt less like meeting someone new and more like finding someone I had somehow misplaced along the way. It had to be predestined, just like I was trying to tell that Nun. Two Italian souls from two different states who somehow managed to wander into the same little hotel at the same moment in life when we both needed someone who understood.
We weren’t just friends; we were soulmates in the truest, most uncomplicated sense. The kind of bond that doesn’t ask for anything, doesn’t demand anything, but fills a space you didn’t even know was empty.
Lisa didn’t just walk into my life. She arrived. Like a gift. Like a reminder. Like a little nudge from my mom saying, “Here, Son, I sent you an ‘Angel’, you need this one.”
And she was right! Friends for five years now, it’s hard to explain just how many times Lisa brought a smile back to my face when life had knocked it clean off. She cared about my well-being in ways I didn’t even know I needed. She understood my flaws, my rough edges, my stubborn streaks, and somehow never made me feel judged for any of them. She just… got me. And that’s a rare gift in this world.
I asked Lisa when the time came, and I moved on to mail you the envelopes that brought you here. I truly hope you will meet her one day. If you do, give a hug for me.
Even though Lisa was married with children, we always ended our conversations like good old Italians do, with “Love ya!” Loud, sincere, and without overthinking it.
But the part I never shared with her. When I said, “Love ya,” I meant it in the easy, everyday way friends say it. But deep inside, somewhere quiet and private, I knew the truth: I wasn’t just fond of her. I wasn’t just grateful for her, I truely loved her as only best friends can do. Sometimes it’s about protecting what’s good, what’s pure, what’s already beautiful. Our friendship was like that.
But to the ones reading this now, deserve to know the truth. Just as Maria, Tracey, and my family have been blessings in my life, Lisa was too. A light. A true angel watching over me. A reminder that even in the later chapters of life, God still sends the right people at exactly the right time.
And if my mom really did have a hand in sending her…well, that would make perfect sense. The second Angel I got to know in my life.
With all my Love
“Con tutto il mio amore, addio”