He was the little boy who wouldn't eat until you had lunch also.
He kissed every animal and crustacean and reptile he ever saw.
He bounced on my bed and sang in his baby lisp, "When I Gwow up, I'm having Wots of Babies, Cuz I Wike Them!"
He swung on our swing butt naked, singing, "It's Good To Be King,"
He loved God and at 5 announced, happily, that one day he'd see his real Father, and he couldn't wait! He'd be "where everything was beautiful and there was never any pain."
He got his own feelings hurt when his puppy got scolded and when a classmate with disabilities was chosen last.
He cried so hard the first day of kindergarten, because there was too much to remember and he "forgot to make a friend."
He purposely partnered on school projects with the kid with no partner.
He refused to do homework for a teacher who made racial remarks toward the Mexicans in their class.
He told me in second grade he'd thought of a way to never have to go to college and leave me.
At 9, his goal was to marry a best friend, a girl who wasn't concerned with fashion. He thought, practically, that picking one out sooner rather than later was a good idea.
At 10, he went to the store and bought shoes for his friend for Easter who he thought was wearing "girl shoes."
He defended his rescue dog Butters' destruction of most of our shoes and half the house with, "You people don't understand. He's just upset cuz he got left."
At 11, he told me he might have bad news for me. Boys couldn't date their mothers, he'd discovered, so our Friday night movies had to stop.
I will never get over what happened to this child, the torment he endured and the beautiful life he was cheated out of. He reminds me of the Cummings poem, "i sing of Olaf, glad and big," especially the last line — "he was more brave than me: more blond than you."
Laura and Zac
Zac
Zaccaria Pogliano was born August 1, 1991. He died January 18, 2015. Zac suffered from serious mental illness.