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A jumble of buildings squatted some distance away, dark, and low. Not a sight I, at my ripe old age of eight, imagined part of Dad’s homeland. Funny how things stick in your mind, from all those years ago, still sharp now, from so many decades ago. A time of our walkabout. Through ominous towns dotted trying to overwhelm desert landscapes. So different from down south coast dairy farm where I grew up. Possible to glimpse pieces of blue-gray Ocean away in divots between hills.
Read MoreA small engraved bell with a clapper sat on the teak coffee table in the room where my father lay dying. He no longer had the strength to call my mother so this was the instrument he used to summon her. I heard it from the kitchen and went into the living room.
Read MoreFor most people home is a house, at least in literal terms. It’s brick and mortar, floorboards, paint, and curtains. Maybe it’s where you’re born, where you raise your own family, or where you live with two of your best friends and a stray cat. It’s four walls and a roof that shelters you from the rain. It’s not that simple though, is it? Maybe home is a town or a city. Streets you can navigate on autopilot, familiar fish and chip shops, trees you used to climb and your footprints concreted into the sidewalk.
Read MoreDaytime soap operas held all the answers.
In fifth grade, my friend Connie introduced me to daytime soap operas so I could learn about things of which I had no firsthand knowledge, things that Connie already understood—love triangles, how to successfully ruin the social and business reputations of others, dead people coming back to life as their previously unknown evil twin.
Read MoreIn 1994, in cold and damp London, in a Waterstones bookstore, the memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father? perched on a paperback display. Three weeks after my father’s death from pancreatic cancer, I had gone to England to start my junior year in college studying abroad.
Read MoreUnder a dripping canopy of tall oaks, I stumbled around a New Jersey cemetery scanning names engraved on headstones. I knew my father was there somewhere, but exactly where was a mystery. No one from the cemetery had returned my calls, the office was deserted, and there wasn’t a soul in sight to ask. There was nothing to do but start at one end and amble up and down the walkways that snaked through the graves.
Read MoreAs my parents’ only child, I always listened for bits of grown-up news or gossip, especially when they spoke in hushed tones or in “code.” Without siblings to distract me away from the business of the adults, I was often privy to all sorts of dirt. But, whenever I asked a question about something I overheard, my mother shamed me back to childhood with comments like, “Little pitchers have big ears!” or even better, in Italian, “Fatti gli affari tuoi!”
Read MoreMy parents raised my brother, Mark, and me in Raleigh, North Carolina, an airplane flight from any relatives. My mother’s sister lived in Oakland, and her brother lived in Los Angeles. We took one family vacation to each during my childhood, because saving money for the future was more important than knowing our cousins.
Read MoreWhen the breeze blew cold, the sun shined bright, and the room filled with tears of happiness, you were holding a little girl in your arms. Your arms that were warm enough to cuddle her that rainy and chilling July. Your fingers that lingered over her head and a kiss you planted on her forehead. She was lucky enough to come into this world and call you her “Papa.” I am proud to be that grown up little girl of yours.
Read MoreYou remember your father’s fingers curling around the head of your new born baby. They are long, the nails rectangular and pared, clean pink and white, like the baby. Her head fills one of his hands and he uses the other to cradle her body neatly to him. He has his hands full, which is why, when the tears start to leak out of his eyes, he has to turn away, towards the window in the corner of the hospital room.
Read MoreI cut potatoes for my visit to Sunnybrook hospital. I’m making potato and leek soup. It is full of minerals and fits the food restriction list for those undergoing chemotherapy. I hope he likes it. I hope it brings nourishment and love.
Read MoreYesterday I just so happened to share a picture of my dad and me on Instagram. It's one of about six photos I have with him. This particular one was was taken on May 25, 1997 on the day of my First Communion. We sit in the front room of the house, the good room or Santa's room as it was called from time to time, because it was also the room where we kept the Christmas tree. My Dad loved Christmas, or so my Mom tells me.
Read MoreHe called me. Me. He picked up the phone and dialled my number. Not the favorite daughter who, admittedly, lives farther away, or the “son and hair” as he was known by his flowing locks in the ‘70s, who lives closer.
No. The bane of his life. The thorn in his side. Me.
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