Jan. 10, 2022

Delivered at St. Elizabeth’s Church, Bristol, RI

Spider-Man may be ruling the box office right now, but today we gather to honor another superhero, my brother, John.

John, with his sense of duty, intelligence, physical strength and hard-to-read face, emulated…Batman. Think about it. Anytime any one of us flashed the Bat Signal, my brother dropped everything, hopped in his red GMC truck — he only wished it was the way cool Bat Mobile — and arrived to save the day.

Even when the Bat Signal didn’t shine in the sky, he was on the case whether it was helping our dad — and countless others — with pesky problems involving boats, pools, lawn mowers, cars, trucks and even my apple pies. John once concocted a compound to eliminate a nasty animal odor in my poor aunt’s cellar. And it worked. How, I ask you, did he know how to do that? Because he was Batman.

John’s passion for all things mechanical began early. It all started with keys. This life-long obsession with keys started when he was still in diapers. He played with a small ring of keys that my mother had to pin onto his cloth diaper because our father had keys hanging from his belt. One day, he thought he’d try a key out in an electrical outlet and he was thrown across the hallway from the electric shock. He never did that again. And from then on, all our electrical outlets were plugged, I think until he graduated high school. But the key thing stuck: As an adult, John carried on his person at least five hefty key rings.

We knew he was going to be a handyman when one night, during a family dinner at the old Eileen Darling’s in Seekonk. John excused himself to go to the men’s room. After 15 minutes, just as Dad was ready to go check on his whereabouts, John waltzed back to the table. So what took him so long? Apparently, a faucet on one of the men’s room sinks was dripping and he took it apart and fixed it. He may have been 9 or 10 at the time.

John also was the man of the hour during a Sunday trip to the New England Aquarium with our cousins, the Cintrons. Uncle Art and Dad had spent all their cash at the aquarium and at the restaurant. This was pre-ATMs and credit cards. So there we were, all eight of us sitting in the station wagon in the parking garage as the men tried to figure out how to pay the fee. All of a sudden, young John pipes up from the back seat, “I got it,” and slips a $10 bill out of his kiddie wallet. And John, rest assured, got that money back.

But let’s talk about his Batman sense of duty. I’ve never met a person who took all of his responsibilities so seriously — and without complaint — as my brother. He was a wonderful son, who not only ran the family businesses, but took care of our parents in the few off-hours he had. John was Batman at home, too: a dutiful husband to Donna and father to Nicholas, who, by the way, has grown up very quickly this week. John would be so proud of his Boy Wonder.

My brother, as the British say, “kept himself to himself.” But even Batman had Alfred as a sounding board. John had cousin Len, with whom he enjoyed Salmon Eggs Benedict every Sunday. He had his life-long friend, Scott Medeiros, too. And even his big sister, whom he affectionately called “The Foodsmith,” got the lowdown every once in a while. I was so very happy to be one of his Alfreds. And not just because I got all the good dish.

Today our hearts are broken, because two weeks ago our Batman ran into a problem he couldn’t solve. Not even superheroes, it seems, live forever. From now on when we flash the Bat Signal, someone else will have to answer the call. And someone will, we know. And when they do, we’ll always think of John, who solved our problems, brightened our days — and will always carry the keys to our hearts.

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