During our time in Italy
I had changed. From longing vaguely for a better life, I evolved to planning
for a successful one. Clean air suddenly didn’t seem as important as adequate
medical care, and a peaceful environment wasn’t as attractive without people to
talk to. For me, the hateful rhetoric we had fled in California had been
replaced by mostly unintelligible sounds in Italy, and in the end, that wasn’t
good enough. Better the ability to answer the screaming epithets, than to stand
confused and mute. In Italy I learned that I needed to connect with others, to feel part of a
community. I could not survive without people. In working to make a life
at Gabi I realized I had a strong will and that, like my mother, I could
experience many setbacks and yet still endure. This realization was part of the
slow journey to maturity that had begun with my mother’s death. As I looked back
on our time at Gabi, I saw clearly that we needed to stand alone as a family,
to support ourselves, and to make our own decisions. We couldn’t do that in
Italy where we were so dependent on my in-laws.
Everything seemed to
happen quickly. In January we talked to my sister, in February we had the flu,
and in March we booked our flight. George and the children were U. S. citizens,
but I still held a green card, and that meant I had to return to the
United States within one year of leaving. Since we had left in mid-May, we
arranged to fly back in late April (with a stop in Toronto to visit with my brother Michael). George’s parents would follow us later that summer.
In March, we pulled our
trunks down from the attic, and I began to pack. In them I placed belongings
from my old life, as well as from the new. My sewing machine went next to our
new Italian movie projector; my mother’s family photographs nestled beneath our blankets along with the photos from Gabi; and I packed as many of the children’s
new toys as I could fit. (I couldn’t ask them to give them all up again, as I
had when we left California.) When the trunks were packed, trucked off to Genoa,
and loaded onto a ship, we began the process of saying goodbye.
While Margaret Ann and
Matthew didn’t understand what was happening, Paul and James were excited about
going back. They would see their Auntie again, they would get regular peanut
butter, and they could watch T.V. Their friends in preschool envied their
journey to America, and the nuns used it as an opportunity for a geography
lesson, but the boys were too young to understand the consequences of their
departure from the farm. They knew some of what they were going to, but they
didn’t realize what they would give up.
They would no longer be
able to run down to the vineyards, or to the orchard, or to pet the dogs. They couldn't drop in on a whim to visit their uncles. They
wouldn’t be there to greet Simona when she arrived for her summer stay. They
would not be around to ride in the newly-harvested hay, and Zio Silvio would
have to drive across the courtyard in his tractor by himself. The uncles would
drink the remaining wine in our barrels, but no one would crush freshly-picked
grapes for those barrels that fall. We would say goodbye to Zio Remo, who would
die the following year. And say goodbye to Zio Silvio, who would be fifteen
years older next time we saw him.
NOTE: The story of our time in Italy
starts with "Arrival"
on the June 26, 2017 blog post.
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