“Regrets, I’ve had a few

But then again, too few to mention

I did what I had to do.” 

“The day I was born, there was a blizzard.

My parents didn’t want me at that time, so they put me in the basket, with a teddy bear, a little wooden hammer, and a blanket, and they rang the bell and left. 17th Street and Sixth Avenue, New York Foundling. 

When the nuns came to the door, there I was, and there was a note: 

‘Whoever finds this baby will be gifted.’” 

It was March 7th, 1948. The baby was Mike Deiudicibus, and this door led to New York’s orphan asylum. 

“So they took me inside, and they were only supposed to keep me for a week. They kept me for eight years. I started to get bigger, and I guess I was a little trouble, a little wild. So they put me up for adoption, and then an Italian family took me in.” 

Here, in the Bronx, Mike recalls, “They treated me like gold, but I never went to school. They homeschooled me. From eight in the morning to twelve, they taught me reading, writing, and arithmetic. At twelve-thirty, I had lunch with everybody. Uncle Joe was an electrician. Uncle Vinnie was a carpenter. Uncle Sal was in sanitation. Uncle Dominic was a cop. So everybody had a profession, and I would be with them every week, from twelve to eighteen years old. That was my schooling.”

Later on, Mike started going to Brooklyn to meet with his aunts and uncles for schooling instead. 

“Always in life, there are ups and downs. There’s no easy life. The hardest time in life, for everybody, because we don’t know what we want, is between nine and eighteen years old. Because we have the good basics from our family and prayer and religion of how we want to do life. But there’s always a stressor. Something gets thrown in the mix– hardships, sickness.” 

“God, just keep me safe.”

At twenty, Mike entered the army. 

“I wanted to protect the country. This was a war that was fought too long.” 

Despite his family urging him to stay, he said, “You know what? I got to do this.” 

For six months, he served overseas in Vietnam, training every day. He was the sergeant of an artillery unit, in charge of moving cannons and massive loads of ammunition. Mike didn’t understand why the war was a lost cause until he arrived in Vietnam. Despite America’s advanced artillery, it ironically “bogged down” the fight against the agile Vietnam and its advanced tunnel systems. America’s use of weapons such as napalm failed to make the necessary measures, and as Mike said, “They outsmarted us.” 

“In the beginning, I wanted to fight. But the longer you stay in the war, [you realize] we can beat them, but it’s gonna take lives.” 

“Since I was a little boy, I would always pray, but I’d ask for the wrong things. Let me hit a home run. Let me have a nice meal. Let me meet a girl. That’s going to come in time. 

But then I got 20 and I had to go into the army. And I said, ‘God, just keep me safe.’” 

To Mike’s greatest relief, he was discharged after six months. He came back home to New York City, where he trained at the Kingsbridge Armory during the week, serving in the National Guard. 

“In this country, when you came home as a veteran, you were honored. When we came back, they were like, ‘So what?’”

In his free time, Mike met a woman, and they soon married and adopted a daughter. In Sullivan County, New York, Mike put his unique education to use by building a house for his young family. “I wasn’t a good role model at that time. I was too young. All I was worried about was building my house, succeeding in work, and trying to be a good husband. But I really wasn’t, because I wasn’t physically there. Emotionally sometimes. I would do everything for everybody– [but] I didn’t do enough for my family.” 

“I planned each charted course

Each careful step along the byway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way.”

“I won!” 

When Mike was seventeen, he went to the race track for the first time. 

“I didn’t know anything about gambling. 

My uncle said, ‘Here’s ten dollars. Pick a horse.’

I will never forget the name – Penny T. The race goes on, Penny T wins! The ten dollars became two hundred. 

‘I won!’

That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have won. Because ever since that day, the challenge, excitement, thrill–that’s what started it.” 

From twenty-five to thirty-five, around the time of building his family, “My whole world was making money, making sure I had money for rent and the wife and kid, getting food, and then betting. That challenge–it’s stupid. It’s that excitement. Tomorrow morning, ‘we are gonna win!’ I made money, and instead of putting it away, I went the next day. You can’t win every day.” 

Through this, Mike’s businesses struggled because of his mentality that “There was always tomorrow to make more.” Despite this, he always made sure not to go bankrupt. 

Mike still goes in every so often to buy a five-dollar lottery ticket. “Now, I play for three days and [if] I don’t win, I stop. In the old days, I would have kept playing. Now I need money to eat, to live.”

“Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

After his fifth year in the National Guard, Mike left the army and began diverting his energy towards other jobs–one hundred and ten in fact. 

To name a few: “Carpentry, plumbing, electrical, painting, sheetrock, cement, driving the truck, driving the furniture truck, driving a bulldozer, working for Con Edison, doing maintenance, being a mechanic in the army, utility soldier, working at a racetrack in Belmont, Aqueduct, Yonkers, Medellins, Monticello. Having a limo company, being a restaurant owner.” 

In the beginning, Mike managed to balance two jobs–one at a race track on the weekends, and the other doing construction during the dead of night. Every night, he recalls, “I got four hours of sleep. I made a lot of money. I met a lot of people, but I was tired. So you’re burned out. But you cope.” 

Yet coping was difficult.

“My wife said to me, 

‘I’m not happy. We have everything in the world, but I don’t have you.’” 

Mike paid back all the loans for their house and daughter’s college–“And then we got divorced.” 

Mike began his own limo company. “After I gave my wife money to move on, I put it into a deposit box to buy a limo, one limo. It was broken down, but I fixed it. I made it beautiful. And I bought tuxedos. You need weddings. You want to go to dinner. And I did it by hand, knocking on doors. Once I acquired a business, I bought three more limos. So I started a company. And the name of the company was Dream Castle Limousine. Because all the girls have dreams.”

When Mike turned fifty-five, he left his ten-year-long limo business and opened up “Italian Delight” in Saugerties, New York. “My aunts and uncles taught me [all I needed to know]. Why I bought it? To feed people. I had a big sign. Whoever’s hungry, you sit down and ask for Mike, and get a plate of dinner. Or whatever you want, I’ll buy it. If guys have no money, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. They always come back later. With five dollars, or they want to do dishes, clean up the place in the morning. I became like a crew master. I started out with three employees. I wound up with fifteen. Because everybody ate at my restaurant. And then they would bring their aunts and uncles who had money. So I made money.” 

“My father used to tell me, ‘Michael, you’re going to go broke. You’re never going to have nothing.’ 

I said, ‘But dad, I have it already. I share it. I don’t do anything for me. I always do it for God first. You guys second. And then I take a little bit. And then I make sure everybody’s got food. So nobody in front of me is going to go hungry.’” 

“But through it all, when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out

I faced it all, and I stood tall

And did it my way.”

“I knew I was going to get sick. I felt it.” 

During the hay-days of limousines and Italian delights, something was not quite right. Mike could feel it. His lifestyle of eating carbs and dairy-heavy foods began to take a toll on his blood pressure. A painful, sharp burn plunged through his stomach. This was the solidification of crystallized minerals into the condition commonly known as kidney stones. In eight years, Mike had three kidney stones, severely damaging his kidneys. But back then, Mike believed, “Men gotta be half dead to go to the doctor.” 

Extremely high blood pressure and kidney failure. That was Mike’s diagnosis when he was half dead enough to go to the doctor. “They didn’t know what to do with me.” 

As Mike pondered his next move, he found himself looking for spiritual advice. “I was working in a Jewish Center in Queens. I’m Catholic. In the Jewish Center, there were Torahs that they prayed to. And their rabbi’s name was Albert. So every day I would go on my knees and pray to the Torahs to get me better. 

‘God, please help me. Who do I go to to get better?’

Right next to me, it was like a miracle–he answered my prayer. It was a yellow page. Right next to me in the queue. 

I said, ‘Please, God, pick one.’

I closed my eyes and I put my finger on the page. The first name was a kidney specialist. Now that’s a blessing.” 

It was a mysterious blessing indeed, and when Mike went to this doctor, he told him the words that hit his gut and left him cold with fear: “You have stage four kidney failure. In a year, you are going to be on dialysis.” 

His kidneys could no longer do their job of filtering waste and excess fluid from his body. Dialysis is a treatment that does the job of your kidneys for you, yet it requires hours hooked up to a machine on a weekly basis. And worse, it leaves you exhausted. Life is hard, but life with dialysis requires tedious determination. 

Mike remembers, “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.” He could not eat food that he used to sustain himself on, and “everything was up.” Two months later, there was no choice. The doctor told him, “Your blood isn’t even blood.” 

“I gave in. I went back to the Jewish Center, I went back to the church, and I prayed. And the answer was–‘do it.’ So I started [dialysis].” 

To this day, Mike holds those two words from God close to his heart. He needed the power of them to stay breathing–“I didn’t know if I was going to live or die. But I did it anyway. And I had faith.” His first treatment lasted a total of thirty-five days. 

Mike has been on dialysis for twenty-seven years–a record that has made it into medical papers. It requires going to the hospital on a weekly basis, a procedure that saps all energy out of one’s body. Yet to Mike, it is a blessing.

“Now with the technology I’ve been through with all the doctors, surgeons, I have more people taking care of me than the president of the United States.” 

“I’ve been through hell and back. But I’m still working.”

“Now, the [doctors] come to me crying. These are specialists at New York Presbyterian. They say, ‘Mike, we can’t help you. We can’t do anything anymore.’” 

Mike gives them a toothy smile, and says, “Don’t worry.”  

“I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried

I’ve had my fill, my share of losing

And now, as tears subside

I find it all so amusing

To think I did all that

And may I say, not in a shy way

Oh, no, oh, no, not me

I did it my way.”

“God, let me ask you a question.”

Last July, Mike got his second scariest diagnosis. Bone cancer. 

Mike went home that night afraid. Tears rolled down his face as he tried to clasp his shaking hands together. 

“God, let me ask you a question. You don’t have to answer me. Just send me a sign. Am I going to make this? Is this just another bump in the road?” 

Three days later, Mike went to church for mass. The priest began to speak, his bold voice reaching the top of the ceiling. He said, “Whoever is suffering now, will not suffer later on in life.” 

Suddenly, the color of the church warmed, and Mike was soothed by the abyss of people, colors, and voices. There was hope because of what the priest said. “That was my answer.”

Mike went in monthly for treatment, twenty days each. Around him, doctors tried to help him. They were scared because they didn’t know if they could fix it.” 

“The [doctors] wanted to prove with my faith and my perseverance that I was going to be alright. And here I am.” 

In the hospital, Mike was quick to his habit of making friends. “I’m not special. I’m just an average guy who’s funny. In twenty years, half of the people in the hospital remember me. 

[They say], ‘Hey Mikey Meatballs! How are you? Come over here!’

They take me out of my room. At two o’clock in the morning, they bring me peanut butter and jelly, a soda, and take me to go to other floors and hold a comedy show. 

I said, ‘Why are you taking me?’

[Someone told me], ‘You make the people laugh. They asked for you.’

Every different unit [of the hospital]–cancer, blind, can’t walk, they asked for me. That’s a big accomplishment.” 

“For what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has naught

To say the things he truly feels

And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows.”

And somehow, Mike beat cancer. 

“And did it my way.” 

“Mike was here.” 

“I get up every morning with a smile. I thank God for what we have. I think about people that are close to me, and I have that drive.” 

When I asked Mike what his proudest accomplishment was, he told me this: “I know it sounds silly, but being out here. Talking to people. Building stuff for people. It’s about the smile on the person’s face that they remember what you did. And that’s what I live my life by.” 

“The will to live. When you’re zero to twenty years old, you have it, but you don’t think about it. When it’s from twenty to fifty, it starts to kick in that you might not make it. So you have the will to live strong. But when you’re fifty to my age, you dream about every day to help somebody to make a difference so they remember you when you pass.” 

When Mike looks back on all seventy-seven years of his life, he thanks God. “After one year of this and that, and in difference, the prayers worked. The angels and the saints worked. God was there every day. They don’t leave me alone. Whoever’s up there, a girl God, a guy God, whoever. And the angels and guiding angels, they’re there. But you have to believe.” 

My dad, a conversationalist of sorts, has become close friends with Mike, who always has a smile on his face when he sees us. Almost twenty years ago, my dad walked by our block’s laundromat, where there are two black metal benches–Mike’s benches. Mike offered to buy my dad a coffee, in exchange for a favor to buy him some new sneakers. They talked and got to know each other. Then, when I was in the first grade, Mike gathered scraps of wood from around our neighborhood and built my sister and I our first bunk bed. 

“I’m always respectful. People remember that. The little kids that go by to go to school every day for years. ‘Hi, Uncle Mikey. Hi, Grandpa Mikey.’ Then they see me feeding the baby birds. They depend on me. The kids, the birds from different trees.” 

On cloudy days, pouring days, and of course the beautiful days, Mike always gives me a big toothy smile and says, “How are you? God bless you!” 

He can no longer make it up our five flights of stairs like he could ten years ago, and the bench is emptier more often. 

“If something ever happened to me right now, I had a good life. Struggles, yes. This song “My way.” Frank Sinatra. My life is the song. They wrote it for Frank Sinatra, but it’s me.” 

“And now, the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

My friend, I’ll say it clear

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain

I’ve lived a life that’s full

I traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way.”

When I asked Mike how he wants to be remembered, he told me this–“That I was a stand-up guy. Always with a smile. Always wanted to take the time to say hello. Tell stories, tell jokes. Never refused anybody. Always either please them, give them something, or even share. And always, always thank God for what we have. And always tell the angels and saints, the guiding angels: I appreciate every day them watching over me and being with me. I appreciate that with all my heart.”

“And when they walk by the laundromat, they stop and say, Mike used to be here. Mike was always there.”

On cloudy days, pouring days, and of course the beautiful days, Mike always gives me a big toothy smile and says, “How are you? God bless you!”