A Wish Fulfilled: Pizza In Italy

Happy Easter and Chag Sameach for my friends celebrating Passover! I know everyone thought they were going to get a travel blog, and you will, but it will have to wait for another week. Today is Easter, the holiest day of the year, and I didn’t feel it was appropriate to write a travel blog. Instead, I will tell another story about my Easter baby, why we always count our blessings and are grateful to God during this time. This is a little story behind our trip to Italy for pizza and a wish finally fulfilled.

Make-A-Wish

In 2001, Joey was diagnosed with leukemia. Some months later, a friend of ours recommended us to Make-a-Wish. Of course we had heard of it, but honestly, I would have never sought it out. I thought it was for terminally ill children and I knew Joe was not going to die. As far as I was concerned, it should be for kids who really need it.

Eventually, somebody convinced me that I was being selfish. The wish wasn’t for me – it was for Joe, and why would I take that away from him? That person was right, so I went to a meeting at the hospital for an introduction into how it works.

Not long after the meeting, a sweet young lady called and made an appointment to come to the house. They wanted to meet Joe and our family as this is part of the process. Two women bring gifts, color with him and make an effort to establish a relationship while explaining more in depth how this works. Eventually, they want Joe to pick a wish that they will try and grant him; for now, they want him to simply think about what he may want to do.

Picking a Trip

Since Joe has Down Syndrome, coming up with different ideas is a hard concept and we know that, so we only focus on one thing at a time. It was very important to me not to inadvertently lead him down any paths and that he chose something that HE wanted. So I was very careful in pointing things out, but it was going nowhere.

Next visit, Freddy, Joe and I are sitting at the table with the two women, and they ask him,

“Did you decide what you may want to do for your wish?”

And he answers quite emphatically;

“I want to go to Italy for pizza.”

I am pretty sure that all of our mouths dropped – that NEVER came up in conversation. Freddy and I giggled and were like … where did that come from? We know the kid loves his pizza, but how did he know to go to Italy? Then my paranoia kicked in, and I thought, holy crap – they must think we put him up to this. Immediately, I try to explain to him why this isn’t a good idea.

“What if you are too far away and aren’t feeling good. We can’t get home.”

This is where reasoning becomes difficult because he can’t understand that concept. In his mind, he thinks everything is so easy. He acts as if we can cross our arms and blink like in ‘I Dream of Jeannie,’ and stuff just happens. He didn’t care what we said and was adamant that it was what he wanted to do.

The Make-A-Wish folks told him it wasn’t a good idea and started talking about Disney. Joe doesn’t like parks, so he isn’t interested. Do you know how he knows? We had just gone there the previous year, and he didn’t like it. So we were back to the drawing board.

Second Wish

Next visit, we told them of an idea we got from watching commercials on TV. He was always watching the Disney Channel and there were lots of commercials for a Disney Cruise. He saw the characters, liked the water slide and the clips of kids eating. This kid loves his food, so that worked and he wanted to go on the cruise.

I figured since it was Disney, this would be doable and next visit when they ask, Joe proposes the cruise. We are told we have to come up with three dates that we would all be available and they will pick one.

I had Roberta in college, Isabella in middle school, Freddy working, and Joe’s chemo schedule, so it was hard to come up with three dates. Put all those schedules together with the fact that Disney cruises don’t run every day of the week, and I could only come up with two dates. I figure that should be ok, but nope! They said we couldn’t do it, but we can go to Disney World anytime.

Again – he does not want to go to Disney. Most kids would love that, but not him! It is too stressful for a kid who doesn’t even like strangers walking behind him or standing near him. You should see him in an elevator – he is downright rude to anyone near him and will let you know he wants you to move.

Third Time A Charm?

The third try at a wish was Joey wanted to meet Tom and Jerry. He was obsessed with them and watched the cartoons over and over. Truthfully, I was starting to get tired of the whole process. It was becoming work, I was already overwhelmed with the whole cancer thing, and I do have other children. But this wish seemed easy.

When I tell the women assigned to us, I suggest we just fly to California, go to Burbank Studios, (since that is the affiliation) somebody dress up as the characters so we can meet them, have lunch and we will be done. This was doable between weekly hospital visits and chemo treatments. I don’t even know why, but that was also turned down.

Looks Like We Are Going To Disney World

I told Joe he can’t meet Tom and Jerry and his reaction was two hands slamming down on the table exclaiming, “Fine, I will go to Disney World!” He gave up. That’s what they were pushing and we were both done with the whole process. I understand why now, but at the time, not so much.

When that was all settled and I was discussing the trip with his doctor on timing during the treatment to take this trip, she told me that he could wait until he was done with all his treatments – that’s what lots of people do. Ugh – I wish somebody had told me that!

In my head, I went back to the first two choices and wondered why nobody had told us that from the beginning? Maybe they don’t want to pay for Italy – I completely understood that but what’s wrong with the others? I could have come up with more dates on the cruise had I known we could wait until treatment was over. I never did understand why we couldn’t do Tom and Jerry.

A Wish Is Granted

We went a month after his final surgery and it was great! They really do it up with the limo, spending money and special treatment. Thank God the food and wine festival was happening because we were able to spend most of our time eating through Epcot. We made sure we took Joe to “Italy” in Epcot to have his pizza. They really do treat you like a VIP, so it is truly a wonderful trip if that is your kids wish.

So here we are … now do you see why going to Italy for Pizza was so important to us? The real Italy! We were able to give Joey his original wish. He fought hard then and has been fighting his whole life to keep up. It took us 6 years, but we could finally grant him his wish on our own. Well, not quite on our own, we did get most of it via a gift from God and the number 3.

Oh yeah …

A year ago I had heard about a restaurant/pizzeria in Rome that was worked by adults with Down Syndrome. So to add icing to the cake, I knew where we were going! Our vacation was planned around Joe eating pizza in Rome at that restaurant on his birthday. Did that all work out? You can read that story here. And if you know me, nothing is that easy and I always have a story!

Final Thoughts

To my handsome, special young man, who changed our world and enriched our lives beyond anything measurable … it gave us so much pleasure to grant you that wish for your 18th birthday.

We will never forget how blessed we were for Joey to win that fight and the blessings continued watching how he has grown into an adult.

What does this story have to do with Easter? Nothing really, but forever Joseph Alfred Riguzzi will be my Easter gift and the two will be synonymous. Jesus Christ has risen and my little man was born. Two of the most special people in the world to me. The ones that I depend on most to show me the way … the right way of kindness, compassion, and empathy. Jesus rose again to save us and Joe’s birth saved me in so many ways I can’t explain yet, but that will come one day. ❤️

For those of you who want to see pictures of all the beautiful churches we saw this week, please go visit my facebook page here! We went to a different church to light candles and pray every day! These past couple weeks have been filled with gratitude and we have one person to thank for that – God.

You can read my travel blog on Florence here.

Wishing you all a beautiful, blessed Easter and Passover🙏🏼

Much Love Always,

Sandy

#enlighten #empower #inspire #educate and always #BeKind