As cousins, Mike and I were often together when we were kids. I remember going over to his house and he would show me how to play with his video games. On other days, he and his mother would come over to our place. We would all have supper together. Most of the time we would pick up a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and enjoy it with each others company. Mike being older than me, I always looked up to him then as I still do today. I remember the time that our cousins came to Canada from Italy. Mike took all of us out cruising into town in a luxurious car he had rented just for the occasion. He took us for ice cream as well. For a kid like me, it was simply the thrill of a lifetime. I still did not know at that point that Mike suffered from a mental illness. Along the way, we lost track of each other. I kept asking my mother, “Dove sta Mike” meaning “Where is Mike”? She had told me that Mike was very sick and had been in and out of the hospital. My mother having immigrated to Canada very young did not know much. People she knew had told her that Mike was a drug addict and that he had become a total junkie. Obviously the rumors spread and everyone spoke terribly about Mike. I was just a young boy and innocently believed all that was being said. I had also heard that he was so “into” the drugs that he had been placed in a recovery centre tied up in a bed in order not to be able to get his hands on more drugs. At one point, we were also told that my cousin had been possessed by the devil himself. Looking back today, I say to myself, “What were these people thinking”. The years went by and I had never heard about Mike anymore. (Part 2 to be continued next week...)

Joe Iafanti
February 23, 2008