Eulogy for a New Yorker who OD’d in the South

Dr. Paul Pastorini welcomed and trusted people who didn’t always deserve it. That’s a dangerous and beautiful quality to have. I’ll always admire it about him.

He lived life with urgency. He was an Italian and a New Yorker. I met him before I can remember. But I always knew where he was from. That’s something else I admire about him.

He worked at the hospital with my dad. I didn’t know what a urologist was or that that’s what he did until I was probably 20. By that point, he’d already done enough good things for me that I didn’t care what he did for a living. He was a friend of mine.

I agreed to babysit his kids when I was in high school. That’s pretty much all I knew about the job when I first showed up at their house.

I was short on life skills at 16, but I was a fine big brother. That seemed a good resume for a babysitter. But I was nervous. There were two girls in there. Diapers.

They welcomed me. Dr. and Mrs. Pastorini laughed through my mistakes. The kids liked me to throw them in the air. I did one too many times. The youngest daughter, Sophia, bounced off the kitchen ceiling. I’ve never hated myself (or ceilings) more. I’ve probably told that story 20 times in my 2 years of fatherhood. I remember it so well because I was so worried. It’s a fun story to tell because Dr. and Mrs. Pastorini laughed off my failure. My failure was that I’d been trusted with three kids and I’d failed to exercise the restraint that distinguished me as the adult-having-fun from the kids-having-fun.

Restraint is the hardest part of being an adult. The greatest part of being a parent is that it feels ok to love your kids without restraint. It’s the first time since you were a kid that your conscience doesn’t tell you to ease up. You can over-extend yourself with professions of love for your baby. Nobody can blame you.

But there’s a burden to that, when you’re the kid, and Dr. Pastorini knew that. He taught his kids the value of restraint. His son was one of the most diligent students in restraint I’ve ever seen.

Dr. Pastorini and I discussed restraint in the roundabout ways of two guys in the gym, clanking free weights and spotting each other, round-tabling new workout regimens and eating patterns.

The really empowering thing about exercise is that it gives us a feeling of control, or restraint. I have a real weakness for that feeling. I’ve been an obsessive exerciser since I was 16. Dr. Pastorini knew that about me. Admired it about me.

It’s the people who flatter and confuse you that stay with you. When I die, I want to go in privacy. With the dignity of no one knowing what I looked like, maybe even where I was. A city name is fine, but not much more. Surrounded by people who knew what to order on my pizza.

Dr. Pastorini did not go like that. But he was an Italian, a New Yorker. He wore Yankees gear and a moustache in the 90s. Scrutiny sustained him. I’ll always admire that about him.

Dr. Pastorini will never leave me. He was a friend of mine. God rest his soul.