He was loving and laughing - a mother’s delight
Until the bright day turned into night...

Nuçi was two when we moved back to Atlanta. It was quite a change for all of us. K.P. started kindergarten, Pierre started a “real” job at the VA Hospital and Nuçi and I stayed at home. I became active at the preschool and Nuçi loved visiting the school with me. Often, he’d stay in K.P.’s class while I volunteered. It wasn’t long before he insisted on going to school just like his brother. When he was three I enrolled him two mornings a week into a multi age class. Always verbal, he had no problem voicing his desires. At five, he insisted on taking piano lessons just like his brother. Not long after he started piano, he read in the newspaper that the Atlanta Boys Choir was auditioning new members. The following Saturday, I found myself waiting for Nuçi to impress the Atlanta Boys Choir with his voice, which I didn’t even know he had. Well, he did and they were. He went on to win their Mozart Award for his talent. Always looking for new things to do, he started the Suzuki method for learning the violin. Fortunately for me, that didn’t last long. He refused to bow and to follow the prescribed behaviors. That was it for the violin.

But Pierre and I felt that he needed his own instrument - one that would be his alone. We settled on the guitar and soon discovered that it was a perfect match. Every teacher he ever had encouraged him to continue playing - he had something special.

Meanwhile, it was becoming increasingly evident that Nuçi was unusually perceptive and sensitive. He was always for the under dog and he was never cruel. One of his teachers referred to him as a “principled man.” He loved sports and was active in horseback riding,basketball, soccer and tennis. He was always a team player and never put his needs or wants first. The summer he turned sixteen, he stayed in Paris with family friends who taught him to play golf. He was a natural and excelled at it. I think he loved golf because there was no sense of competition with somebody else. That summer, he also worked on his French - he loved everything French. He loved to laugh but most of all he loved to make us laugh.

His sensitivity and his kindness made him so endearing. I remember one afternoon when he was about ten. He came down stairs with his blankie wrapped around his head and just stood in front of me. I knew immediately that he’d just finished reading the YEARLING and felt sad. He felt everything deeply.