Monday, November 28, 2022
Nick was a true and lifelong friend to me; I knew him since I was 14 years of age. We were on the football team and in class together in high school. We lived around the corner from each other in Bayville and were the closest of friends. His parents treated me like family. After graduation we continued to be friends when I left for college and thereafter when I moved away even though our lives would take very different paths. When I was first in the Coast Guard Reserve and stationed on the south shore, I would take the train out from New York once a month and stay with family in Bayville. Inevitably and without fail, Nick, Danny Brennan, John Falzarano and I would end up at the Twin Harbors for dinner and a few beers. It was the epitome of the camaraderie of old friends. We kept this up until I was eventually reassigned. But that didn't stop me from visiting Nick every time I could when I came out to see my mother or in the summer when I would go to the beach with family. My wife and I would always hook up with Nick and head for the Twin for dinner after a day at the beach whenever that opportunity arose.
At a time of great personal tragedy, Nick was there for me without question or complaint, and I am forever in his debt for the support he gave me during that time. Now he's gone forever as is so much of what once defined lives and friends in our small town of Bayville. His obituary here truly does describe him in the most accurate of terms, something that makes his passing all that much harder to bear. This world will never hear his raucous laugh and good-natured ribbing again. Regrettably his lively banter has ceased forever, now there is only silence in its place. What a sad and sorrowful reality. How does one fill the hole left when one loses a friend of 56 years? How can he be so suddenly gone and unreachable, off to a place we ourselves can't understand or experience? Seems as if the silence of his passing is so complete as to be almost deafening.
Farewell old friend and God's speed on your journey. Be like those Greeks of the ancient world and travel on without fear looking forward to a new and more glorious shore upon which to rest.
