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Date: 7/5/2023
LONGMEADOW — Longmeadow resident Ciro “Gerry” Camerota “learned early on to make lemonade out of the lemons life deals you.” The retired real estate agent spent about two years putting the lessons he has learned and his life experiences on paper in a memoir, titled, “Rising Above It All.”
Quoting the well-known adage, “necessity is the mother of invention,” Camerota said he needed to write the memoir to heal after two “catastrophic” incidents converged, which, “threw me for a loop.”
Camerota’s wife, Patricia Camerota, had a bevy of health problems that left her with arthritis throughout her body and living with a motorized wheelchair. As her husband, Camerota was her main caregiver.
In January of 2021, the then-86-year-old Camerota got his wife comfortable in the living room with access to the phone, and then went to take a shower. Before he could do so, however, Camerota fainted and remained on the bathroom floor for more than 12 hours, passing in and out of consciousness. While awake, he yelled for his wife to call 911, but she did not answer. Camerota later learned he had become ill from COVID-19. Meanwhile, his wife had not called for help while he was on the floor because she had died.
“I knew I had to deal with my physical health and I knew I was going to have to deal with my mental health, so I decided to focus on the physical first,” Camerota said. He spent a month receiving care at Baystate Medical Center and a rehabilitation facility in Holyoke. After healing from his illness, he turned his attention toward dealing with the loss of his wife and his emotional wellbeing.
After speaking with a counselor for some time, they told Camerota that he had a remarkable life and that they would be interested to see it in print. So, he decided he would write his autobiography.
“The more I wrote, the more clear my head became,” Camerota said. Helping to heal from his trauma was the first purpose that the book served. He said it is also a legacy to leave to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
In authoring the book, Camerota said he discovered “my family was very secretive. They never shared anything.” Had they been more forthcoming about their lives and their health, Camerota said he might not have had so many brushes with death.
Camerota nearly died at birth. The doctor used forceps to facilitate the delivery and accidentally squeezed one of Camerota’s eyes, damaging it. When born, the left side of his face was discolored, and he was given last rites by a priest. Despite the rocky start to life, Camerota survived.
As an adult, a doctor treated an illness with penicillin, only to discover Camerota was allergic to the medicine. “My throat closed up, my tongue swole up,” he recalled. He credited the doctors’ quick action for saving his life.
In the early 1990s, Camerota was diagnosed with colon cancer. He later learned that several members of his family had died of the disease. “The symptoms came to the forefront, and I could have been tested before,” Camerota said.
In 1993, Camerota had the cancer removed and received an ostomy, a surgery that bypassed his colon. He has been cancer free for 30 years. Since then, Camerota has worked to educate others about the potentially life-saving nature of ostomies. He won a Hometown Hero award from Reminder Publishing in 2002 for his work.
In the book, Camerota tells the story of how he met his wife. “It was all arranged,” he said. “Our fathers knew each other.” Camerota’s father tried to convince his son to take his friend’s daughter to a dance at Elms College, but the 20-year-old Camerota needed convincing to take a stranger on a date. “He gave me a $10 bill, which was a lot of money at the time,” Camerota said. His father asked him not to tell his mother about the money. The next day, his mother tried to convince him to take the girl to the dance and handed him $10, not knowing her husband had done the same. Camerota laughed, “For 20 bucks, I said, ‘I’ll do it.’”
Camerota said he picked up his date and, “She opened the door, and the rest was history.” The couple married four years later and were together for 62 years.
Writing the book was a labor of love for Camerota, who is functionally blind. “In Gerry’s world, when he decides to write something, he writes it with a pencil and paper,” he said. When writing down his life story, he held the pencil in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other to help see the page.
Unsure of how to transcribe his work into print, Camerota reached out to Bay Path University to see if an English student would be interested in transcribing the pages. He was connected to the Office of the President, where Assistant to the President Daryll Sverrisson offered to transcribe the book for him.
“I just felt compelled. I said, ‘Let me help you,’” Sverrisson said. She said it took about 12 hours over a few days. Sverrisson found Camerota’s story inspiring. “It was very special,” she said. “He’s so excited to share his story.”
“I have 200 copies of this book sitting in my dining room. I’m like a babe in the woods. I don’t know what I’m doing,” Camerota said of getting his book out to the public. Those interested in getting a copy of “Rising Above It All” can email Camerota at camerotaciro397@gmail.com.