My Son Italo, My Son Marco, My Madeleina, the whole damned bunch

Today I had just come from Two Buck with my four minis of whiskey. I was still on the side road to Interstate 35 at a red light about 1/2 mile from being able to enter the highway. I was listening to the radio, really loud, a new Stones song--and a great one at that--when someone knocked at my right front window. I turned with the appropriate New York "What the Fuck?" face, only to see my boy Italo laughing. He'd pulled up his truck next to mine. We spoke. I've got a seriously ill cancer patient staying at my house--having fled her fourth chemo in mid-stream--and yelled through my roll down windows that I cannot reach from the driver's seat that she's insisted on pizza tonight and wanted everyone over to make it feel like a party. He said he was busy but might make it.
    The light changed and he was gallant enough to let me go ahead of him onto the highway and at that point our paths deconverged.
    And two minutes later I was sobbing. Just freaking sobbing. I'm so proud of my kids, of Italo, and I miss them so much--after so many years of being around them every day, talking homework, talking house cleaning, talking basketball, playing baseball. Maybe some of you know. But I was driving down the highway missing him so much. Knowing that if he just shows up for 10 minutes tonight my friend with extremely terminal last stage cancer will get another month of good living just because he smiled at her. He's got that quality and I admire it. So does his mom. So does Madeleina. So do the kids. So does my other son, Marco. You might think you have the party of the year going on, but then one of my family walk in and you suddenly realize that "Oh, I get it, NOW the party is hot!"
   I don't know where they got that gift. I don't have it. But they do. And just seeing him next to me in his truck at a stop light brought me to freaking tears of joy. I waited a long time to have a family. When I got it, I blew it. We're broken now. But I still see what they bring to the table and I know this world is better for them being here.
  I love you, Italo. Thanks for being my handsome young man with the light in your eyes.