No doubt, 2023 has been filled with mixed emotions and wins and losses for me. As I am navigating a new direction and building a new life for myself, I have encountered some challenges to say the least to get here. One particular decision was the hardest I ever had to make....moving away from my hometown and my family. But, yesterday was by far one of the hardest days of my entire life. Yesterday, I said my final goodbyes to my ultimate hero. Last Wednesday, my hero passed away from this life and became once again united with the source of everlasting life and love. Yesterday, her body was laid to rest in its final resting place. A body that endured so much pain and suffering is finally at peace. I held the hands of my hero one last time. I gazed at the worn and wrinkled yet absolutely beautiful face of my hero one last time.
My hero was my Nunna. A woman that survived so such including childhood hardships growing up in Italy which no child should have to face including being deprived of an education to raise her younger siblings, the Great Depression, and WWII. Then at the age of 26, she became a survivor of the sinking of the Andrea Doria on July 25th, 1956 (exactly 67 years ago today), the ship that was supposed to deliver her to a new and hopeful life in the US. She was a mother figure to so many her entire life, raising her five siblings, her own five children, and her many grandchildren and great grandchildren. But she was also a mother figure to so many more: nieces, nephews, neighbors, and even strangers she met for the first time. She had the biggest heart and gave love and food freely. She thought of everyone and put everyone first before herself. As soon as I walked into her home, immediately I felt lighter, loved like nothing else, and special. Her jokes, smile, laugh made me forget all my problems. She would whip up a 3 or 4 course authentic Italian meal from her humble kitchen just for me. And like Jesus feeding the masses with a few fish and a loaf of bread, like magic she could multiply food to feed an army. This woman’s tomato sauce and meatballs can only be described as pure heaven. There is nothing else on earth that even comes close. The divine aroma of her sauce was intoxicating. It hit me as I walked into her home on those days she was making sauce and instantly pure delight and excitement filled my heart as I started to salivate. I just couldn’t leave that house until that pot of sauce was done and I got to eat some. She was witty and blunt and didn’t hold anything back. She was not afraid to speak her mind. If she disagreed with me, she would tell me straight to my face with her thick Italian accent and her mix of English and Italian and at times with a “colorful” choice of words purposefully spoken in Italian that would make me giggle because though I didn't speak Italian, I sure knew what those colorful words were because of how often she dropped them. But even though she may very fiercely disagree with me, there was no doubting her love and devotion to me. She made sure I left with a hug and kiss and lots of food.
Most of my fondest memories of childhood were of her. Sitting in her old kitchen talking and laughing with her as she made me pancakes or “sugar eggs”. Learning to make homemade pasta, raviolis, bread, and Italian cookies at her dining room table. Giggling on her lap as she would sing in Italian or tell silly stories in the dim warm light of a table lamp late at night while Nick at Night played on the TV on those lucky nights I got to stay over. Helping her in the garden that looked like a jungle to my childhood self with tomato plants taller than me and bean plants that seemed to grow straight to the clouds like in Jack and the Beanstalk. Sitting on her porch with her as my siblings and I pretended we were sailing on a ship with a sauce pot lid as the wheel and brooms as the ores. Running around her yard making up games or pretending to be just about anything as she sat and watched with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. At her home it felt like I was free and my imagination could go wild. I could make the most terrible messes as I acted out my imagination with my brothers and sister. And I was never scolded for it. She would clean up after we left with no complaints. Then the next day, the slate was clean for the next round of imaginary play.
I know my life will never be the same now. It is an end of an era. Now life without my hero has commenced, a time I never wanted to see. She is not here now to call me to see if I made it home okay or see what I was making for dinner. No more visits to Nunni’s house and then leaving with 2 quarts of her sauce and bowls of leftovers. No more sitting at her table chatting and watching TV with her. Holidays will never be the same. She was the center of every major holiday from trick or treating at her house, Christmas Eve dinner (my absolute favorite day of the year because of her), her New Year’s Day call at 12AM, Palm Sunday dinner, coloring Easter eggs on Good Friday while eating her warm Easter bread at her house. Then there was the very special call she would make just to me every year on the feast day we were named after, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on July 16th. My Nunna's first name and my middle name are Carmela. I miss my hero. But I know lives on in me. We had a special connection that not even death can break. I am by far the luckiest person in the world for having been the granddaughter of the most beautiful, amazing, loving, resilient, strong woman to have walked the Earth.
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