Obituary

I got the printer home and set it up on my desk. It wass large, heavy, grey thing, top of the line, end of an era. I wiped the dust off with a damp piece of a torn shirt. I plugged the wires into my computer, another relic. If things get things done then why invent a problem?

I pressed the power button. That sound, the hum of things starting, is one I have always liked. It needed to run a start-up test so I put in a stack of white paper. The old ink churned, the parts of the machine wheezed. Out spat an indecipherable sheet, filled with letters and numbers, different widths of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Nonsense telling me the printer was ready to use.

I did not use it until weeks later. I needed to copy my passport. I opened the top and saw a piece of paper already there, stuck in the corner. I picked it up, turned it over, and a face smiled at me.

DONALD "DONNIE" SCARLETTO

9/6/81 — 8/14/2006

"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75." — Benjamin Franklin

And so it is with you, our devoted Son, Husband, Father, and Friend. Donald "Donnie" Scarletto, 24, was taken away from us suddenly on August 14th. Donnie, like all of us, was deeply human, but it was the very traits that gave him his humanity that led him down the path of Fate. For us, he will be remembered for his laugh, his practical jokes, and his personalized guitar songs. He caught fish in the Gulf of Mexico, helped Grandma with her lasagna, and could change a tire faster than his older brothers. He never had an unkind word to say to anybody. Maybe when he loved he loved too much.

Donnie is survived by his two children, Francis and Lauryn; his girlfriend of nine years, Kylie; mother, Florence, and father, Joseph; brothers, Joseph and Michael; grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends too many to name. He will be missed immeasurably.

Funeral at St. Paul's and a party at Duncan's Downtown with stories and tears until they kick us out. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be sent to St. Christopher's Youth Home for Substance Abuse.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

I trembled. I felt sad for this boy, for his family, that they already had been grieving for so many years. That his children would not hear his laugh, or have songs written about them. I held my passport in my other hand. I could not remember where I was going.