My brother was known to most as Henry but to his family he was Sonny. He got that nickname as a small child from our maternal grandmother. Whenever our mother would dress him up all sharp and spiffy, she would send him downstairs to the ground floor apartment of our East Harlem brownstone where our grandparents live. He would knock on the door then stand straight and proud and when our grandmother would open the door she would exclaim, “My Sonny boy!” and he would beam with pride and fling himself into her loving arms. One of his favorite outfits was his little sailor suit and he would not let my mother send him off with even one little scuff on his shoes. He had to be perfect not just for grandma but for himself. The Sonny name stuck all his life. But it was not his only nickname. Our uncle, also a navy guy, called our father Henry and Sonny apparently wasn’t tough enough for him so he always called him Butch. I never heard him call my brother anything but Butch.

Later, when my brother joined the Navy, he got pneumonia in boot camp and had to spend a few weeks in the infirmary. As a result, he was permanently separated from his New York class and reentered boot camp with a class from the South. Ever impressionable, he quickly picked up a noticeably Southern accent, some of which he retained all his life. We were shocked when he came home on his first leave talking like a Southerner. My oldest sister began calling him Jackson, and did so the rest of his life.

It was in the Navy that Hank really caught on and continued even after his discharge and into his civilian working life. He seemed comfortable with any and all of those monikers. Not known to anyone however was that his name, Henry, from our father Henry, who Americanized Enrico, was our paternal grandmother’s tribute to a childhood family friend from Naples, Enrico Caruso. And fittingly, my brother loved classical music and the opera. I don’t think it had anything to do with his name, it was just a taste he acquired early in life and retained all his life. He cherished a childhood piano teacher and always regretted not pursuing that particular skill further. His other regret was not having an operatic singing voice. But he appreciated the talent of others immensely. He did have musical skills however. He played the trumpet and was a member of his Naval band. They played a celebratory welcome aboard the USS Lake Champlain when it recovered the crew of the Gemini 5 space flight after its splashdown in the Atlantic. It was one of his most cherished service memories. The Navy afforded him many other unique experiences as well like his tour in Iceland where he got saw the Northern lights firsthand and learned what it was like to live in darkness all day then light all day. While there he also developed his draftsman skills and when asked randomly to engrave a pelt with a memorial inscription, he found yet another hidden talent. He used to see many whaling expeditions which did not particularly impress him. He always had an aversion to eating anything from the sea. He never understood where it came from but it existed since his childhood. Needless to say, when we celebrated traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinners of multiple fishes, he would have no part of those meals. There was always a separate menu for him those nights. We referred to it as Sonny’s sauce.

But for a good portion of his life he loved good food and that was enhanced when his company, Morgan Guarantee sent him on assignment for a year to Paris, France. He fell in love with French culture – the food, the wine and he learned to speak French. He also used Paris as a base to travel extensively throughout Europe and experience many cultures. This exposure to different cultures also began in the Navy, when he also used Iceland as a base to go to Europe on leave. Specifically he went to Italy to meet our father’s surviving sisters and other relatives, the only one of us to have done so – lucky him. While in Italy at that time, he also happened upon a great event – the coronation of a new pope. He took extensive home movies of Vatican City setting up for the big day and incidentally, also there for the event was none other than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Thanks to our brother, and good timing, we have the privilege of having about 20 seconds of in color home video footage of JFK up close and personal as he participated in a motorcade in Rome. Of course spotting a couple of US sailors, he gave a special nod.

Lest his home life seem mundane, when my brother was working at JP Morgan, he chose the night shift and often went out after hours with work friends for drinks and a meal before heading home to the Bronx. One night, they felt like having pizza and my brother being a native of East Harlem, could think of only one place – the original Patsy’s. Off they went but found they were not the only ones with that idea. Sitting at a back table was Frank Sinatra and a small entourage. One of the women in the Morgan group was awestruck and wanted an autograph but was afraid to approach the star. My brother volunteered to walk her over. When they got there, she timidly asked for and got the treasured autograph. Then Mr. Sinatra looked at my brother, expecting the same request. My brother looked right at Ol’ Blue Eyes and said, “I would just like to shake your hand”. So Mr. Sinatra stood up and took my brother’s extended hand. The others at the Morgan group probably wanted to kick themselves.

I shared many life experience with my brother. We took riding lessons together at Van Cortlandt Park Riding Academy and were getting pretty good at it. We took public transportation there and were amused when others on the bus would look around wondering where the smell of horse was coming from after we boarded. We bussed it to Vermont to see the Norman Rockwell museum - of course my brother the artist would not miss an opportunity to see another’s work – and other lovely summertime cites of that state. Through his company, we took an Alpine tour and enjoyed dozens of landmarks – the famous Olympic ski jump at Innsbruck which leads right to a cemetery – a bit of Austrian humor. Many of the locales where they filmed The Sound of Music, The Matterhorn and other breathtaking Alpine scenes in Switzerland and Northern Italy. Even prior to the trip, one of my brother’s favorite dishes was veal especially fried veal cutlet so what better to order in Vienna than Wiener Schnitzel? But even a good thing gets tired so one day he decided to try something else and practicing his newly learned sketchy German he ordered that “something else”. We nearly collapsed laughing when he was served Wiener Schnitzel. We had been prepared for cool weather there but they were having a heat wave so we were not properly dressed. Even the Matterhorn was melting. My brother toyed with the idea of purchasing a lederhosen outfit but I laughed him out of the idea although I myself let him buy me a dirndl. It was the trip of a lifetime.

Henry led a very full life which unfortunately wound down recently to one he did not enjoy much anymore. He rarely had any appetite, could not take the long walks he loved through the Chelsea neighborhood he really loved. He was fascinated by the Highline and the Chelsea Piers where he would always work on the great tans he used to sport to look healthy and fit. He hated the thought of lugging around an oxygen tank or having to stop every five steps because his legs hurt or he had shortness of breath or both. He tried to make light of it sometimes saying little old ladies would offer to help him cross the street or that if it were not for trips to the pharmacy he would have no social life at all, but deep down it troubled him greatly. He missed having his pet cats, he missed seeing more of our two Chihuahuas when he would come visit us in Yonkers. He loved dogs and relished it when neighbor’s dogs would pull over to him for a pet. He loved Chelsea and his apartment building. He loved Manhattan. He really would rather have died than leave his dwelling for assisted living or a nursing home and in a big way, much to our great loss, he got his wish. His was not a lovely death but he died where he loved living, surrounded by all that meant something to him, that he would not have wanted to give up any other way. I questioned many of his life choices. I think he could have and should have taken better care of himself even if it meant accepting more help but he was aggravatingly, infuriatingly stubborn and set in his ways. And in the end, if that lead to his more premature demise, there is no denying that he left this world closer to his own terms than not. I believe he would have counted me a best friend among several good friends. I know he was mine and now I have to learn to live somehow without him being just a phone call away. But if he is as the cliché goes in a better place, freed from the body that in the end betrayed him, I may be able to learn to live with that cruel reality. Rest in Peace Sonny. The world was better for you being in it and will never be the same without you.