As you are reading this post, I am traveling across the country for my grandmother’s funeral.
Since my grandmother lived halfway across the country and since my parents divorced when I was four or five, I didn’t get to spend as much time with her as I would have liked.
But I am thankful for the time I did have with her.
I am thankful for the summer when I was six and turned seven that I got to board an airplane all by myself and spend the summer with her. She bought me Jelly shoes that I could wear while swimming in Joe’s Pond. We watched soap operas on a little black and white television in her kitchen as she cooked lunch every day. She grated fresh parmesan by hand to top my soup made with broth and tiny star-shaped pasta (stelline). She baked focaccina and topped it with the thinnest layer of pizza sauce (secret ingredient=anchovie paste) and capers. It was just me and her.
I am thankful that I again got to spend the summer with her when I was twelve and turned thirteen. I helped her in the kitchen. We shopped at the Italian grocery stores. I would nod to myself as she and my aunt conversed in Italian- I don’t think they realized that I picked up the language from them.
I am thankful that anytime someone she knew was coming my way, she would insist that they stop by and pick up a pasta frolla and focaccina to bring back to me. I enjoyed all those treats carried onto planes and flown 1,000 miles just for me.
I appreciate that she would put out a box of chocolates, a pasta frolla, and a bottle of Ameretto di Saronno at breakfast time. Other family members would roll their eyes at her, but I always indulged her. When I would visit as an adult, she would pack a lunch for us to take with us sightseeing- thick focaccina sliced down the middle and stuffed with prosciutto.
I always laughed because with each decade her accent was as thick as the day they passed through Ellis Island in the fifties. But I always appreciated that they came to America with their young family and started a new life for themselves.
It doesn’t matter how much time lapses between visits, I can smell her soap and her home. Aromas that are distinctly her own.
She had the purest, most delicate pale skin. (We’re Northern Italians.)
She kept her furniture covered in plastic.
Her home was filled with chandeliers brought from the homeland.
She smuggled huge, heavy sacks of flour into the country with each trip. (Lucky they didn’t peg her as a drug mule.)
And brought back substantial tins of fruity olive oil.
She complained about how old she was every single time I talked to her.
She was stubborn.
I think she missed her husband and all her friends in the neighborhood who went before her.
She lived to 91.
Although I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my Nonna over the years, I am thankful for all of the time I did have.
