Tag: family children siblings

Finding Guiseppe ~ Part I

“I’m not eating any sardines!” my eldest sister exclaimed!

The video call was full of laughter and argument, each trying to get a word in, as my sister made her pronouncement.

It all started last spring when I messaged my sisters. “I’ve got points! Let’s go somewhere.” Before we knew it we were researching our grandfather Guiseppe and planning our journey.

We live in various parts of the country from the northeast to the southwest but we will travel together ~~ the town mice and the country mice off to explore the world. I see us now – seated in one long row talking and laughing as we wing our way aboard Lufthansa through the friendly skies to our destination – Sicily.

Years ago, our grandfather, just 10 years old, traveled aboard a ship to the dream of America. Forty years later, our father flew over Sicily as a tail gunner, ridding the world of Mussolini and freeing Italy. This week, our father’s daughters will return to Sicily, touch the earth, dip toes in the Mediterranean, travel to Mt. Etna, and visit our grandfather’s village.

We are quite a group – texting across the country as we plan our adventure. What to eat, what to pack, where to meet? It’s not quite the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but it’s something like it! I can see us now, careening through the tiny streets of Catania. Dosh (Dorotea) will be holding on tightly, Vivian (Viviana) laughing, Karen (Corrina) talking, and Marjorie (Margherita) riding shotgun as I (Caterina) steer our car toward our destinations. We will be a jolly group of sisters, remembering our mother’s aunts and their hilarious visits when we were children and realizing we have now become the aunts and it’s really quite a glorious thing!

If Mom and Dad could see us, they would smile and be happy for us. They would laugh at our foibles. They knew each one of us better than others do. After all, we were theirs before we were anyone else’s.

We’ll eat pasta and cannolis, croissants and gelato and though she doesn’t know it, I’m sure Dosh will even eat sardines!

~~End of Part I ~~

Keep An Eye Out for Part II

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Once Upon an Evening

As any family, in our grown up years we find ourselves scattered across the country and sometimes across the world. But every once in a while we feel the need to gather– to hear the familar voices of our siblings. We’re an opinionated bunch, most large families are. We learned early the old adage, speak now or forever hold your peace. and believe me, we can speak! And so we found ourselves one weekend smack dab in the middle of the country…

Here we are, all together in one place, sitting on my niece’s bed which she has so kindly provided for this weekend. I am looking at my older sister and listening to her talk.  My brother sits next to me as our little sister leans against the pillows.  It is late and we have traveled far. We are friends, borne of family and choice and we are savoring every moment of this night as we laugh and talk and catch up on each other’s lives. We are children grown up, laughing and talking and chiding as children do.

There was no plan for this late-nigrockwell parents with childrenht meeting.  It is a serendipitous moment seldom found in the rush of adulthood. We were unaware when we stepped off our planes and hugged each other, that after all the chatter of the evening we would drift into this room to renew our acquaintance with the past.

Years ago we ran together through the fields of upstate New York, towheaded and barefooted, skin the color of gently roasted marshmallows. We climbed up high in the barn for the tomboy contest and swam in our old pond, murky as it was. In winter, we dragged our trusty toboggan up the big hill to come flying quickly down, piled one behind the other, screaming with fear and enjoyment. We walked through tunnels of snow, dug from our house to the road, to climb on the school bus during those cold, dark winters, and picked apples in the back field at the end of beautifully sunny summers. We picnicked at the creek and picked out Christmas trees from our own fields.  We savored wild strawberries, their tiny size betraying nothing of their enormous flavor. We delighted in our own names for our own fields – the flat, the hill, the harp, the knoll, the pool table, the lane – we knew them all. We knew the best place for blackberries and became experts at stringing raspberries on tall Timothy grass.

We learned to state our opinions at our kitchen table where our parents encouraged us to think and talk. We learned to sing around the piano and did not fear the sound of our own voices. We grew strong and confident never realizing the depth of relationship developed over those glorious years. And, as most children, never noticing the great work our parents were doing in our lives every day. Now, as parents ourselves, we are kinder and more understanding of our own parents and we love them even more as we understand their lives and their decisions.  We are now them. They are seen in us.

We have gathered in the middle of the country to celebrate many things, our parents, our connection to one another, a triumph of health…..there is a gratefulness to us in this meeting. We have learned, over the years, that our gatherings are never to be taken for granted and so we treasure every moment together.

Yes, here we are, thankful children, talking late into the night, with no mother to scold us or father to direct us. Yet we know, if there is a way to see us from that heaven up above, they are smiling and enjoying their children gathered together under one roof again.