The beautiful ‘normal’ life in Hamilton, that many thought Roger DiBattista would never have

If gratitude were made of light, Roger DiBattista would glow in the dark.

He's 67 now and wears the smile of a man who has enjoyed a wealth of accomplishments that he once was given to believe would be foreclosed to him. Accomplishments like a career, marriage, a child and, most recently, authoring a book, Lessons from Life: A Teacher's Story." At the start, however, he was the boy who many people thought would never have a chance.

His birth was divided between two worlds. He was conceived in Italy and spent the last part of his term on a boat taking his parents and his sister from Abruzzo to Canada.

Roger arrived on July 30, 1953, and was his parents' joy, but at three months, he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, sometimes called water on the brain; spinal fluid builds up without properly draining.

Just before the diagnosis his parents were horrified at how large his head was growing, with great swelling and distortion all over but mostly around the forehead. They had brought him immediately to the doctor who told them Roger would have to be hospitalized - and not just anywhere but at Sick Kids in Toronto. It was that serious.

They told my parents that if left untreated I'd be dead in six months," says Roger. But they said that there was also an experimental treatment that might save my life." Even so, they feared there'd be serious lasting deficits.

This treatment, standard today, involved surgically inserting a shunt into baby Roger's head to drain away the fluid.

His parents spoke almost no English at the time and had no car. Roger's cousins, who'd already been in Hamilton for some years, directed Roger's parents to Dr. Olivieri on Barton. He could explain things in Italian. And those cousins would drive the family to Sick Kids, for which they were grateful.

It was all overwhelming for Roger's parents. Their son's condition, their new country. But they were more strong than intimidated and they said yes. Yes. Save our boy.

Roger believes he was the first in Canada to have it done; at any rate, he was one of the very first.

It worked," he tells me, but not without enormous side issues. He was afflicted with terrible migraines and fits of vomiting, all stemming from the hydrocephalus. The shunt would sometimes get blocked and he would need lumbar punctures (needles in the spine) when he was six.

I wasn't too happy about that," he says now, with a chuckle. The pain was so bad (he remembers seeing stars), his screams so loud, from the lumbar punctures, that his father couldn't stand to see him suffer so and had to leave the room.

He writes in Lessons from Life" that his father was a very strong but sensitive man and he couldn't stand to see me in that condition. My mother was a pillar of strength. She was right there the whole time. She would hold my hand and tell me, in Italian, Don't worry, it'll be all right.'"

The condition caused him to go conspicuously cross-eyed at nine; that required surgery. Because of the lumbar punctures, Roger's back was weak and he developed problems with his gait and his feet, for which he had to undergo many surgeries, well into his teens.

He has his school report cards - dozens of days missed due to hospital visits. Every summer was spent in hospital with one thing or another.

But he was in school and he succeeded. He had some learning challenges (I'm a visual learner," he says) but not insurmountable and he was fiercely determined. He made it through. He was especially strong at French. He has an aptitude for language, perhaps from growing up in a house where English and Italian were spoken together.

He graduated, went on to study French at university, went on from there to get his teaching degree, met his beloved Eveline, married her, and built for himself a wonderful career teaching French at various schools and boards, where he inspired so many, especially students.

I made up for all the days and months I missed in the classroom by teaching in one for over 30 years," Roger says.

School wasn't easy. He was ridiculed. He had to sit on the sidelines for so much, but at every step through school and beyond it, there were people, friends, teachers, loved ones, even strangers who treated Roger with support, care and good humour and responded to his strength of character.

And so we come to the crux of his book. Hard work and thankfulness. Gratitude is in his voice as we talk. His older sister, Lea Marrone, who championed him from the very start, and her late husband Albert Marrone (who helped him understand math); of course, his wife Eveline (a huge support to me from the day we married," he says). His cousins. Perhaps most of all, his parents Emidio and Antonietta DiBattista.

And his precious daughter Alicia (and son-in-law Peter Sheffield), who, he says, is still looking out for him and encouraging him to be his best and never give up. Roger, to this day, has trouble walking but he does. Walks? He dances! That's how he met Eveline. And there's a picture of him on the floor with his daughter at her wedding - the father and daughter dance.

Did I say dance? He's positively floating.

NOTE: Roger's book, which he started years ago in retirement, got finished this past year as a kind of pandemic project. A portion of the proceeds go to Toronto Sick Kids and Hydrocephalus Canada. For more information, contact the publisher at tellwell.ca.

Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com