Anthony Peter Turiano

We wished Anthony Peter Turiano Bon Voyage on December 28th, 2023 at 10:34pm with a sadness we have never experienced. He passed of an unexpected cardiac arrest in the ambulance on the way to McLeod Seacoast Hospital in Little River, South Carolina, which some say in the right light looks like the glittering Land of Oz from Tony's favorite movie the Wizard of Oz.

He was surrounded by friends and family in the days before his passing and had let us know quiet candidly that he adored us all more than we could ever know and that we were all driving him nuts, particularly Nate who kept hiding under his hospital bed pressing the buttons to move it up and down citing spirits.

He saw us through Caleb's birthday on the winter soltice and Christmas and left under a full and shining moon to light his path back to so many he missed so very much.

On the night of his passing at his exact time of death, his granddaughter Evie looked out the window of the emergency room where we waited for the ambulance and into the darkness waved and said "bye bye daddy, bye bye dude". He had entered the ambulance minutes before alive and laughing, much like his beloved cousin Anthony Casablanca. We have to believe she was the last person to see her grandfather before he departed on a journey he had so awaited.

He somehow chose the moment of his death and pray that when our day comes, we have the capability and strength to do the same. The afternoon of his passing, he told his daughter apologetically that he was in too much pain to continue to walk with her through this life. He let her know that he would never leave her willingly but wished each day with his prayers to leave his hurts behind and go to be with those he missed.

"Everybody is at the other party" he joked, "I stayed here all this time hurting just for you". With a big hug and their same old "I love you more than the moon and the stars", the last words she said to him were "Your parents lived to be 90, I think you're out of luck because you're not dying today." It was the last time they would ever see each other in this life.

Born beloved to Angelo and Caterina Turiano, who immigrated from the mountains and beaches of Sicily in the 1940s escaping WWII by boat young and very much in love. They lived 62 years together, built generations, bickered often, laughed more, ate even more (dhe cooked, he ate) and passed away 14 days apart with Angelo going first on October 5, 2010, saying he could never live without Caterina. Caterina following him days later of a broken heart.

Their life together on the blocks of the Bronx, NY and then Pleasantville, NY was loud and so full of joy and heartache it deserves it's own story. They had two children Anthony and Maria Rosa, who were so alike they couldn't speak for much of their lives but we all know, loved each other more deeply than words. Both grew to be parents, grandparents, poets and psychics.

Their roots tied them together in a way that allowed them to spend the rest of the journey apart without any time lost. In the last days of his life, Rosie sent photos of a childhood filled with friends and family, of a mother who should have been sainted for her caring to us all and a father who never once let any of us down.

Tony held many roles in his life, actor (check out Bonfire of the Vanities to see him as a young reporter), 3D camera salesman, creator of what is now greatschools.com, electrician and projectionist. So intertwined was his life with the movies he loved that on the night of his daughter's birth, he drove a hundred miles an hour on the highway to start the film before racing back and parking his car on the sidewalk of the hospital to be their for her first breaths.

So many would say his greatest role was catcher in the rye though. Anthony Peter Turiano devoted this lifetime to saving others.

A 30 year member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he attended the noon meeting until the week of his passing. He was often quoted as saying "It only takes two people to host a meeting" and did just that with strangers that became friends in so many countries we lost count. Those of you he sponsored know, this was his truest life's calling.

A pause in his story at just this point must be taken to honor Fred Cowles, his sponsor of 30 years or more, who never missed a morning call. They walked together through Muscoot, spoke each morning as reliably as the sunrise and though Fred had 5 boys himself, he treated my father as his own son. My father would not have gotten through this life without Fred's wisdom, kindness and guidance at all of his most important moments. We have no words that could ever be enough thanks for Fred who guided our father and grandfather day after day to become the man that he was to us by the close of his lifetime. The transformation Tony experienced in the rooms was the greatest miracle of his lifetime.

As were the rest of his friendships. The late great wise man Joseph, the smiling Burton, his cousin Anthony Casablanca and all the friends he walked with through his life. My father was a great friend, the greatest. He would give you his time and warmth without ever asking for anything in return, he was faultless in that respect, there was no one he wouldn't talk to, laugh with and be a help to. Chet though was the best friend of his lifetime, jokingly referring to their duo as the odd couple, they traveled this life together through love and loss and laughed the whole way together. Photos of Chet were everywhere from every decade and he had become family to Tony for half a century, the brother he wished for but never had.

His last and questionably most hilarious friend was Denise, his caregiver. A woman we still think may have twinkled her nose like Bewitched and somehow accomplished things, she drove him to the doctor, she cooked him food, she raised the spirits and she gave it right back to him with a humor that they shared from being born and raised in new england. It was because of her that he was able to carry out his wishes of remaining in his beautiful home all his life. The gratitude we have for her is beyond words. She will continue on as babysitter and storyteller to his three grandchildren.

Because we are talking of the life of Anthony Turiano, women must be mentioned. Pause here for everyone to laugh and remember, Lois, Nicki, Summer, all his girls in Harlem, the woman who owned the Negril Scuba school, we lost track of names and places. Before the age of cell phones, his daughter carried a list which she erased, crossed off and amended looking for him throughout his best looking years. Mostly for permission notes to miss school, which he wrote on paper Diner placemats more often than her high school principal was happy with.

In his older years he was graced with more than a decade of companionship of Teresa Ranallo, who he talked of so often. They shared a love of sci-fi and sushi and she held his hand through his parents passing and so much more. In his last days, he spoke of visiting Florida to thank her again for the time of life she shared with him.

He married twice. It was confirmed in the close of his life, that his greatest and most long lasting love was with a dazzling young nursing student we now call Nana.

MaryJane Robertshaw and Anthony Turiano were a match made in heaven, complete and absolute opposites they brought one daughter, aptly a Gemini, into the world in May of 1982. They met at Westchester Medical Center, him an electrician building the main tower and her "the best looking" nursing student he could ever imagine. It's a place that has it's own story for the whole family just the same.

She loved his family and he loved her. MaryJane was everything that Tony was not, and he to her.

She cared for him and devoted her time to him all the way up to the moment of his passing. Those of you that know their story, know that she will be sainted upon her own passing for the forgiveness she offered and the kindness she showed all of their lives together. They spent their old age with their grandchildren taking walks, watching magic shows performed by the boys and reminding us all why they call these years the golden age.

Just before the close of his life, Tony was graced with an unexpected and so much wished for last love who came into his life on Valentines Day. Evie Looby looks just like her mother and was the last woman who would ever steal his heart. They laughed together, cried together and sat together smiling each and every day. You could find them in the warm southern air as he held her sitting on green grass. He said he felt like he was getting a chance to hold his own baby again and told us these would be the best memories of his life.

Though Tony only had daughters, his son was John Paul Looby who he had the blessing of being a 2nd father to for 20 years. The two joked and talked like old buddies from the day they met. JP helped to tie up what had been broked between Tony and his daughter in a way only he could have.

Together they weathered 7 surgeries, encouraged each other, hoped for better days and in the last days of his life still talked daily of swimming in the fountain of youth. They shared a deep love and occasional shared annoyance with the health regimes proposed by Katherine, his daughter.

To JP Tony left the greatest charge of his life, the three children that mattered more than anything in the world to both of them. Tony cared so deeply for JP, he guided without judgement, listened without bounds and will be missed more than we can know by him.

Tony spent the close of his lifetime telling JP everything he would ever need to share with the grandchildren too young to hear it before he had to go. JP was the person Tony listened to most devotedly and they could often be found off together heads pressed close, sharing secrets we wont ever know.

Tony's life was an adventure, but he cashed in his tickets and landlocked himself for three reasons at the close of his life, Nate, Caleb and Evie.

He was a doting and devoted grandfather, the best one I think that ever was. It was hard to keep track of the three boys, two small, one large, but questionably less mature.

Watching them together was like seeing Huck Finn in live action. Nate Asher Looby and Caleb Church Looby would be his last great traveling companions. In the closing decade of his life, he could be found dancing the night away under the bridge lights of Curaco with a one year old Nate and flamenco dancers in a crowd, swimming with sea turtles, hitchhiking in the bed of a truck through Bonair to hidden snorkeling coves holding down a stroller and fishing, boating, swimming, snacking, both with voices raised and hearts open.

Caleb, who he believed and we agree, to be his late father Angelo reincarnated, caught Anthony's heart in a way that could only be seen in the twinkle in their eyes. They had the common trait of being strong caring men right from the beginning.

Tony's adventures with Caleb were full of laughter and resort crashing where grandpa actually paid the bill but let the boys think they were sneaking in. There was ice cream, pizza, trampoline parks, fires on the frozen lake, swimming under the fireworks on 4th of July, teaching Caleb to swim on lake days, movie nights. When Caleb was asked what they did together when their parents left, he said, we just loved each other. My father who once wished for a son got 3.

A single father raising an only daughter, Tony could be spotted in his younger years at Denny's at 2am drinking coffee with a 10 year old, parasailing, piloting row boats with trolling motors into the open oceans of Florida, actually sneaking into Atlantic City casinos, eating comped midnight ice cream sundays, allowing the entire jazz band at Ballys to crash their hotel rooms (miss you Eddie and Jazz!), exploring Babe Ruth's island, teaching her to swim by dropping her in the middle of the open water of the lake they lived on, one summer trying to dig a swimming pool, fishing, saving kittens, putting metal in the microwave (with the safety of welding masks on) and being her best childhood friend.

In his older years they spent their time at yoga classes by the beach and getting pedicures where they both painted their nails blue. The memories he will cherish most in his lifetime will be traveling, laughing and catching up endlessly with Katie.

The soundtrack of their life together was Simon and Garfunkel's America album and Paul Simon's album Graceland, which he told her at 10 she would not understand until she was 40. Listening to it now, she knows he was right about that and everything else he ever told her that she didn't listen to.

It is with this note that the life story of Anthony Peter Turiano comes to a close. He is onto a new adventure. One he planned for, studied and hoped for all of his life. We know he was greeted by so many and will be missed by the same. In a lifetime of conversations that will echo all of her life, one phrase should be offered, he said it a hundred times a day to his only daughter, "slow down". Don't miss it. He left books of poetry and bounds of notes, but one other should be offered here as the last advice he will ever give. Opening the instructions for his will, he had left everything typed and set. On the top was a hand written note in his huge scrawling handwritting, it said only, "Have fun! love dad".