Published: July 07, 2008 02:07 pm            

WHITE-WALKER: Weep for Warduzzi

At the turn of the century when I wasn’t even here yet and neither were you unless you’re hangin’ in at 108 years old, my beloved Grandfather Papa’s sister’s adored son was completing his studies for becoming a medical doctor. Not only was Duardo (Warduzzi for short, go figure) an only son, he was an only child —brilliant, gentle and handsome. Okay, not really handsome, maybe even on the homely side, but beautiful to his mother. All children are beautiful to their mothers. I never really put great importance on looks until ...

I know exactly how Warduzzi looked because I wear his picture that’s inlaid in an old-fashioned style brooch, in that sexy little hollow of my neck just below my sagging chin. Some may think the oval frame borders on gaudy with an ornate tarnish and gold looking braided design encircling his face, but I’ll have you know, antique dealers are banging down my door begging to buy it.

“Get lost!” I politely tell them, “don’t you callous creeps realize that sentimentally has precedence over money?” Oh, over the years I’ve been tempted to sell it. You know how desperate you can get when money is so scarce, but then you ask yourself, what would Warduzzi say? “Hock the damn thing! I’ve always hated that ugly picture of me anyway.”

But you love and cherish the memory of a man who had the brains and stamina to become a doctor. To think, out of all my relatives, someway, somehow the brooch found its way into my cardboard jewelry box.

“I wouldn’t take that uncomely ‘dago’ dazzler if you paid me,” insisted one of my cousins.

“Wanna wear it for the day?” And before I fully finished my question, she practically performed a tracheotomy on my throat, ripping if from that sexy little hollow in my neck, under my sagging chin.

“Maybe you’ll want collateral from me as insurance of its safe return?” she asked.

“But we’re family! If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?”

“Boy, are you ever a dreamer,” she sighed. “Haven’t you ever heard that riches can tear a family apart? That peoples’ ugliness surfaces when money is involved?”

“I’ll risk it,” I said. “Besides, Warduzzi might enjoy being pinned above another woman’s bosom for a change, seeing how very few he may have seen in his short lifetime.”

Warduzzi was just finishing his internship at the hospital when he contracted the Spanish Flu, and to the enormous heartbreak of his mother, he died. Sixty years later and she was still crying for her son.

With reverence I wear the brooch to school and it must be a real eye catcher because students can’t keep from staring at it. Now remember, it’s terribly archaic looking, this dear gem, but what do I hear?

“Mrs. W. is that your mother?”

But wait! It gets worse! Now I’m hearing, “Is that a picture of you, Mrs. W.?”

Darn those fickle dealers. When they know you’re so frantic to unload your goods, they suddenly become terribly disinterested and lower their offers. Poor Warduzzi, priceless to his mother, worthless to the world. Warning — don’t pin your hopes on posterity.

Karen White-Walker is a Wilson resident. Her column appears every Tuesday.

        

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