Flaunt It Friday: In Memoriam

Holidays are naturally a time for families, for being with the ones we love, like at Thanksgiving!  Inevitably, life being what it is, there are people whom we love who cannot be with us in the physical world, as they have passed and are confined to observing our holiday on-goings from what John Edward calls “the other side”.    We miss them dreadfully, despite the time which has passed since their passing, but if we are careful and quiet enough we can feel their presence amongst the chaos of our holiday celebrations.

Being a part of an Italian family and all the emotions that go along with that phenomenon, remembering the deceased goes something like this:  mention his name, look at a photograph of him, tell an old story about him… sob, sob, sniffle, sniffle, bawling, SERIOUS BAWLING. Everyone demands that everyone else “STOP IT!” Amen.  Everyone is in tears, even the men! Yes, folks, we remember our dead with a tribute of tears… like a bunch of freaking idiots! Needless to say, it is useless to wear makeup when we get together, unless of course it is waterproof!

Non-Italians, feel free to scoop your jaw up off the floor now and continue reading this post.

Whatever the manner in which your family remembers its deceased, it is inevitable (and all-important I think) that you do just that especially during the holidays!  So this Flaunt It Friday I’d like to challenge you to dedicate your post to your all-time favorite deceased family member: the one you remember with tears. The one you miss the most. The one you would give an arm and a leg to have back right now, to hug and to hold this holiday season.  OK! There goes my eye makeup! Crap! By time I’m done writing this I’ll need to wash it all off and do it over again! (Reread the arm and leg part again and started crying again! Shit!)

Here goes mine…

My all-time favorite heaven dweller is my maternal grandfather: Salvatore, Sal as he was known to others, and “Grandpa” to his beloved grandchildren (all thirteen of us!)  Anyone who ever knew this man knows that he was the most wonderful man ever! He was one of those people who had perfected the art of loving others and of being loved. He was patient but irascible when need be, kind but tough, paternal and friendly, solicitous to other’s needs, generous, deeply spiritual (in his own way), just, merciful, funny and entertaining. In other words, he had it all… everything you’d want in a man.

I am certain that Grandpa’s affability is the secret to my Grandma’s undying love for and devotion to him. Come to think of it, I have never heard a negative thing about him out of that woman’s mouth… EVER! Even when I ask her point blank about how he, like all other men, had to have been a huge pain in the ass at times! She will point out this or that shortcoming and without anger or resentment acknowledge the fact that he certainly could be difficult and all that without demeaning him in any way, exuding only the deepest of love, because, hey, he was the most loveable of guys!  (Damn, it just occurred to me, Grandma is still love struck after all these years! That speaks volumes!)

Needless to say, I have only the fondest memories of my Grandpa. I don’t think that I have ever come to love another human being (excepting my children, of course) as much as I love him. I don’t idolize him, but I’m certain that my love for him has had long lasting effects in my life. For example, since I was sixteen I have inadvertently (and most times secretly) fallen in love with older man after older man! How I ended up marrying someone my own age is beyond my comprehension!  Y’all think that maybe Grandpa has something to do with that since I end up comparing all men to him?!  No one fits the bill quite as nicely!

Grandpa was the perfect gentleman.  He would be eighty five now, a regular man of the golden age! You know the type. Served in WWII, came home to my perfectly devoted Italian Grandma who had waited patiently for him, hanging out with his mom (my great-grandma Mary – she was a tiny hot pepper of a woman – I’ll have to write about her another time) and writing to him every day. He came home on leave, swept her off her feet, married, fathered four beautiful children, had a whale of a time with life and succeeded at being the happiest person alive. We, his grandchildren remember him differently though. Happy, but from a grandchild’s point of view.

Grandpa was the patriarch. What he said went.  He could shut up our parents with a glance. They never even got a chance to argue. In fact, parents were required to leave their parental authority at the door, because that’s where it ended.  I guess you could say that Grandpa and Grandma’s house was kid friendly… really friendly… and kid indulgent too, like all good grandparents’ homes. He always found a means of reprieve for us when we were being punished. He always found a way to spoil us, to let us off on good behavior. But then again, he was easily manipulated as he loved sports and, when punished, we would simply invade the living room! (n.b.  payback is a bitch, because my dad obviously took some serious notes from his father-in-law!)

Grandpa was patient, waaaay patient.  The man had the patience and wear with all of Job and then some.  He was easy going and calm. He was the kind of guy who listened to elevator music in his Cadillac, the kind of music you learned to love just because you were happy with Grandpa when you were listening to it.  He was in the habit of humming and singing all the time.  Yes, I didn’t know it then, but that is truly the sign of a happy man: a man who had taken the bull of life by the horns! I remember only one time that he lost that everlasting patience. My ass is still sore from the one pop that I got! And that only after my brother and I had absolutely pushed every button and gone way over the limit! We sooooooo deserved it!

My earliest memory of Grandpa was of little just-turned-two-years-old me standing in the front of his car (way before the invention of car seats) between Grandpa and Grandma, feeling totally safe and secure, waving to Mommy, Daddy and my newborn baby brother in the hospital window.  That is, actually, my very first memory of existence ever. How poignant that my Grandpa should be part of it.  

I also relish my memories of attending Mass with Grandpa on Sundays when I did weekend sleepovers at my grandparents’. Grandma would go to earlier Mass because she had to get the enormous pot of sauce going for the Sunday family feast. I’d go later with Grandpa, because heck, I stayed up way late when visiting them.  I was always so proud to stand by his side singing hymns along with him.   Man, the man could sing and how!  Sing from the soul! I think that my love for music (and church) is also due in part to his influence.

There are just too many memories to write about!  This is already my longest post ever and I am afraid that I might bore you going on and on about a man you didn’t know.  For those of you who knew him, let me just list a few more things to remember him by.  Iced coffee. Midday naps on the flowered couch. Grandpa’s homemade ravioli. His gourmet taste for raw meatball mix.  His sports balancing act: radio, television and newspaper simultaneously! Those way too early trips to the beach in your sweat clothes.  Those extra long bubble gum sticks on Sundays.  Getting a “get back into the pool free” pass via sulking on the pool deck stairs. “I’m not here” for anyone who was heading over to the ringing phone (the man would have loved caller id!). Etc…

Unfortunately, my Grandpa had one flaw: the man smoked and could not kick the habit. He developed lung cancer in the early nineties, suffered for six months and passed thereafter.  I was in Italy the entire time, struggling over whether or not to abandon my tract in the novitiate to go home to visit him. If I left then, I’d have to start all over again and throw away the two years of absolute hell that I had already been through, but that wasn’t what killed me.  If I left to be with him I was sure (and frightened to death) that I’d never go back.  When they finally informed me of the true nature of his illness I was devastated. I remember sitting on the floor locked in one of the convent bathrooms, crying hysterically so much I thought I would die with him! The dirty looks that I got after exiting that bathroom were mere pinpricks compared to the knife that twisted in my gut for months over my grandfather’s illness and death. But that’s a story for another post or for my novel. Perhaps the whole dilemma was God’s way of sparing me what I probably would not have been able to bare:   seeing him ill and suffering. I have regretted my decision to stay in Italy and not see my grandfather before his death from the moment I made that decision… and I will until my own dying day. Grandpa, being the man that he was, would understand.

Excuse me a moment while I go rehydrate…

Now, there’s simply no way in hell my writing could do the man justice. We still come across people today who knew him. Their faces light up as they remember him.  We all sit around and look at his great-grandchildren and chat about how much he would enjoy being with them, how much he would have loved our babies. Then, of course, again we are in tears!

I miss my Grandpa. Even after fourteen years I am so angry that’s he’s gone and I wish that he could be here with us… and he is, just not in the way we’d like.

Here’s one of my favorite photos with him. (I’m the one in the mini dress)