Moving to Italy: The Flu--Part 4.5

It had rained off and on every day since Marino had left for the hospital, and the little trickle of river under the bridge on the road to Gabi had swelled wider and higher. The rain was particularly heavy that day as I watched the road anxiously for our green Kadett. In the late afternoon I saw it splash over the little bridge and begin the slow climb up the hill. The boys and I saw it slip on the straight-away, slide near the vineyard, then disappear at the hairpin curve. It seemed an age later that I saw a pale green flash as it cleared the trees below the house. I let out my breath in relief and glanced down at the children's worried faces. They had been watching me. A moment later we heard the car round the corner and pull into the courtyard. 

I peered down the stairs and was surprised to see Marino walk in the front door. He was drawn and gray and had obviously lost a lot of weight. George and Rina helped him along the hallway and into his bedroom, then George came upstairs and explained to me all that had happened. Still suffering from the last stages of the flu himself, he fell into bed, exhausted, while below us I could hear my father-in-law coughing.

When I put the children to bed for the night, George was still sleeping, so I went downstairs to check on my in-laws. Looking distraught and distracted, Rina was walking around and around the kitchen, while through the open bedroom door I could see Marino sitting on the side of the bed, struggling to get enough breath to cough. He looked terrible. I glanced back at Rina as she pointed at bottles of medicine littering the kitchen table and said, “I don’t know which one is which. They told me everything so quickly I couldn’t understand it all. What am I going to do?”  

It was odd. All of the moments she had nit-picked and nagged and frowned in silent disapproval, seemed to fade. Suddenly she was a sick and confused woman, not my dreaded mother-in-law. When I looked at her worried face, I saw she was vulnerable, that she needed my help. Since my own mother had died young, I had never known the role-reversal that was then taking place. It was my turn to guide and advise. 

I picked up the nearest bottle and looked at the label. There was writing on the front, just like the ones I was used to, but it was in Italian. I asked her to translate. It said to take every four hours for cough. We picked up the next bottle and she translated the label again. Then I noticed a sheet of paper with the doctor’s instructions. As she slowly translated those, I helped her determine which pill was which, and when they, and the shots, should be given. It required that she get up several times during the night, so I showed her how to set the alarm clock to do that. Really, she needed more help. She needed someone to take over for her. I felt badly that I couldn't do that, but I'd already spent three wakeful nights with the torn ligaments in my back followed by long days caring for the children. I knew I wouldn't have the stamina to haul myself out of bed every couple of hours. I also knew that George was out for the night. He too was wiped out, and even when in top physical condition, he could sleep soundly through babies screaming next to his pillow. I had watched him do it many times. Besides that, neither of us had experience with injecting medication. Since Rina had been trained by the nurse, she was now the family “expert.” She would have to take care of Marino, no matter the outcome.

Before I left, I went into the bedroom to see Marino. He, too, looked vulnerable. Gone was the powerful authority figure who had forced my husband to work clearing the land for twelve hours each day of the summer. The face that could register kindness as quickly as anger now showed only pain as with every cough his shoulders trembled and he leaned forward to struggle for breath. He glanced at me briefly, and I saw a face drained of all color, except for the almost-black circles under his eyes. When Rina brought him a pill, I watched her help him steady the cup of water to his lips. He looked even worse than when the doctor had ordered him to the hospital. I was sure that he was going to die that night. 

I said good night and hurried upstairs. Deep inside I was terrified at the thought of witnessing his death as I had my mother’s. So much for my yearning for the natural life. When it came time to face up to the ultimate act of nature—death—I turned away.

I was awake most of the night with the pain in my back, the sounds of pounding rain outside, and constant coughing inside. Physically and emotionally I was completely drained.

But it would get worse.

Moving to Italy: The (Endless) Flu--Part 4

While Marino was in the hospital, his condition deteriorated. George and his mother drove there every two or three days to take him water and food, but neither of them was well enough to endure an all-night stay. Marino complained that he wasn’t receiving the medication prescribed by the doctors. When he asked the nurses for it they would say “Later,” and then never come back. Because he was so sick, it was hard to tell how much of what he said was true, and how much he just couldn’t remember. There was no one present from the family to check on what medication he was receiving and when. To make things worse, between the noise in the hallway and his persistent cough, he wasn't sleeping at all. He stayed for ten days and then insisted on leaving. When the doctors refused to discharge him because he was so ill, he made up a story about having to catch a flight back to California the next day.

When George and his mother arrived, the doctor gave them a supply of medication and syringes along with a list showing when to give what, covering every couple of hours that day and "on the plane" the day after. He also gave them a sealed letter for the doctor in California. A nurse even trained Rina how to give the injections by practicing on an orange. George told me that when he saw all the directions and the needles, it scared him badly.

He described what happened when the doctor left Marino's hallway bedside.

“Papa, I think you should stay here. They know how to look after you…” George had said.

“No. Those damn nurses never give me what I need! If I’m going to die, it’s not going to be here. You take me home now, Giorgio.”

In his anger he choked, started coughing, and clutched at his chest in pain, scaring George even more. At that Rina picked up Marino’s case from under the bed and swept his few things into it. She knew there was no use arguing.

When George realized his father had made up his mind to leave the hospital, he said, “OK, then how about we drive to the airport right now, and I put you both on a plane to California? We can call Olga and Willis to meet you in Los Angeles, and they can take you straight to St. Joseph’s Hospital.”

This time it was Rina, “No, no, I’m too sick. I can’t travel and also take care of him.”

Marino added: “You heard what the doctor said, I’m too sick to fly. And what about the smallpox shot?  They won’t let us back into the States without it. Stop talking, and help me get dressed!  I’m going home.”

George figured he’d raised his father’s blood pressure too much already. Defeated, he did as he was told, dreading what might lie ahead as he drove them back to Gabi. 

(Note: The story of our move to Italy starts with "Arrival" on the June 26, 2017 blog post.)

Moving to Italy: The Flu--Part 2

Marino and Rina were older, more vulnerable, and they had a bad dose of the flu. Just like us, they both ran high fevers and vomited, and the accompanying coughs echoed up the stairs to our apartment. But Marino's cough gradually degenerated into long staccato hacks. When Zio Silvio knocked on the front door  to see how we were, I heard Rina shuffle to answer it in her robe and slippers. She asked him to drive down to the bar in Gaminella to telephone for the doctor. Marino was too ill for her to treat. As I coughed and coughed upstairs, trying to rest while the children napped and George snored, it occurred to me that the children were getting better, but we adults seemed to be getting worse. In my weakened state, I wondered morbidly what would happen to the children if we all died. It seemed I was assimilating the Italian penchant for the dramatic.

The doctor arrived the next morning. He diagnosed my father-in-law with bronchial pneumonia. Since Marino also had a bad heart, the coughing and the fever had stressed his entire system and had left him very weak. The doctor ordered him into the hospital in Casale immediately. Marino resisted, but Rina persuaded him that since the rest of us were ill, there was no one to care for him properly at home. He had no choice. George and Rina would drive him to the hospital that afternoon to make sure he was admitted.

After lunch we all trooped downstairs to see Marino off. He looked pale and drawn as he shuffled down the stone hallway to the front door, leaning on his walking stick. As I had noticed with George’s relatives in California, to older Italians, going to the hospital meant you were going to die. With tears in his eyes Marino kissed each of the children goodbye. I am certain he thought he would never see them again. The children were not sure what was going on, but they stayed suitably subdued as they watched him hobble out to the car in the light rain. Zio Silvio and Zio Remo stood by ready to help. After the brothers shook hands and exchanged quick hugs, George and Rina settled Marino into the back seat. We watched from the doorway as George drove slowly out of the courtyard. All three were coughing as they rounded the corner of the house. Upstairs, the children and I gathered at the window to watch through the drizzle as the car slowly wound its way down the hill, across the bridge, and into a fog bank.

Hospitals in Italy at that time were a far cry from the facilities we were used to in the States. We had visited Rina's brother-in-law in the same hospital a few weeks before. We were shocked. George’s job in California as a social worker had required many visits to L.A. County General Hospital. As crowded and run-down as conditions were in Los Angeles, he said it looked like a palace compared to the Italian hospital. The "wheel-chair" was a couple of pieces of wood sloppily hammered together on wheels. The long ward in which his uncle stayed was lined with beds, but no curtains for privacy. While not required, it was strongly suggested that a relative stay day and night to help each patient. There was no bed for this unpaid nursing help, just a chair, and they also had to provide the patient's bottled drinking water. At lunchtime, the kitchen staff rolled a big pot of soup down the center aisle. They doled out the same thing to each patient, without respect to dietary needs. If the patient wanted something else, the relative could bring it. The medical equipment looked 50 years behind the times, and to top it all off, we never saw a doctor actually touch a patient. Standing aloof in a suit and tie, they directed the nurse to perform the examination. They seemed to be afraid they would catch something. Maybe the older Italians had reason to worry.

As George and his parents drove into the city, they dreaded their arrival at the hospital.  When they got there they were even more dismayed to learn that, because of the flu epidemic, the only available bed was in a hallway. Since my in-laws were American citizens, they were charged the “foreigners” rate of $30 a day— exorbitantly expensive in 1972, especially for hallway accommodations.

With no other option, George and his mother allowed Marino to be admitted and helped him undress. Still coughing and exhausted themselves, they left him lying on his bed in the hallway and drove home.

Moving to Italy: Christmas, Part 2

In mid-December I recorded a Christmas cassette tape of the children for my sister. Paul and James sang the songs they had learned at the asilo, they talked for a few minutes about their life in Italy, and they asked her when she was coming to see them. Margaret Ann and Matthew didn’t speak well and were more interested in playing with the microphone than speaking into it, but I managed to capture a few fleeting words as they helped me read a book. As I listen to that tape today, I am struck by how much Paul and James speak English with a strong Italian accent. They were supposed to speak only English around the house, so they had daily practice, but in a few short months they had slipped into Italian syntax when they spoke English (e.g. “a bicycle red,” instead of “a red bicycle”), and their vowels and consonant sounds were Italian. As George was collecting the boys at preschool one day, the father of Paul’s best friend stopped him. He asked if he could drop his son off at our house to play, so that the boy would pick up English. George told him that it would be a waste of time. When Paul and James played together, they slipped automatically into Italian. I was torn between stopping them so they wouldn’t forget English, and encouraging them so they would reinforce their Italian. On the cassette tape, one of them uses a word and they argue in rapid Italian about which word is correct. It is obvious, listening to the exchange, that they were much more comfortable in Italian than English. Given another year, I venture to guess they would have forgotten English almost completely. We learned, as have many immigrant families in America, that the push/pull of the mother tongue and the new one is difficult to negotiate.

When we next went to Casale, we saw very few decorations for sale, and those that we found were expensive. After seven months of living on our savings our funds were low, so we got creative. One Sunday afternoon in mid-December George and I took all of the children down to the garage. We helped them cut out shapes from pieces of aluminum foil, then twisted the tops into hooks to hang on the tree. Then they colored traditional pictures of Santa, the reindeer, and presents, and cut them out. Next George directed them to draw random shapes, color them, and cut them out also. In the tops of all of these we punched holes and threaded them with red and green and yellow yarn. George tied two sticks in a cross, and the children helped him wind blue yarn back and forth around the sticks, so that it formed a diamond shape. Then they glued a small plastic baby “Jesus” in the center. That was our tree-topper. A few days later we gathered and painted pine cones in different colors to substitute for colored ornaments. In her Christmas box, my sister had sent candy canes and small, red, net stockings containing chocolate coins that we could hang for more color. The collection of decorations wasn’t as lavish as in the past, but it was enough. I didn’t ask how the Italians of that area decorated for Christmas, because I knew only what I wanted to do for my family. 

 A few days before Christmas, George went out with his father and they cut down a small fir tree. When they arrived home, they anchored it in a bucket of dirt, brought it upstairs, and placed it on one side of the carpet in our living room. The next afternoon we helped the excited children hang their homemade decorations on our very own Italian Christmas tree. They clapped and critiqued and exclaimed and cheered, their eyes alight with joy. And when we were finished, it looked as lovely as any of our trees, before or since. 

After we settled the children in bed that evening, I took stock of our home. We had moved the dining room set from the center to one side of the large main room. The carpet, a red Persian-style which went well with the couch we had bought from Piero, covered most of the remaining floor space. On it we had placed the couch, George's birthday rocking chair, and our Christmas tree. Except for the lack of a television, it looked much like the living rooms that I had known all of my life. In the middle of northern Italy we had created a little oasis of comfort for ourselves.

Moving to Italy: Christmas—Part 1

December reminded us of Christmas, and Christmas reminded us of family. We wanted to send greetings to all of our family and friends in England, Canada and the States, so we drove to Casale to look for Christmas cards. The ones we found were written in Italian, but the pictures and the sentiment needed no translation. That Christmas would be our first one without my sister, and throughout that December and January memories of other holidays haunted me.

When we moved to Italy, I brought along my entire collection of family photographs.  Some were housed in albums, and some were loose. I had inherited the entire collection of black and white photographs that my mother had inherited from her mother, and I treasured them as she had. My mother had packed them in the trunk when we moved from England to Canada and from Canada to California. I packed those same photographs along with my own into that same trunk and took them to Italy. Sometimes, on a rainy afternoon, we spread them out on the dining room table. I went around the collection naming the people in the black and white images. The children preferred pictures of people they knew, and laughed at the one of my sister and me in Toronto posing with my dog in front of our Christmas tree

 

  In the same way, I found great joy in looking at photos of younger versions of my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and my mother. I hung my sister’s framed wedding picture on the wall in my bedroom, so that the children would remember the aunt and uncle who sent letters and gifts—and peanut butter—from California. I also displayed pictures of my mother on my dresser. None of the children had known her, but it was very important to me that they knew the woman in the picture holding baby Paul, was my mother and their grandmother who had died just a few days after Paul’s first Christmas.  

We were surprised to find that Christmas was a very low-key holiday in Italy of 1971. When we bought our Christmas cards in Casale, there was no sign of Santa waiting to greet children (with the requisite photo op). There were neither snowmen nor elves decorating the shop windows, and the streets were not lined with colored lights and fake trees. The focus seemed to be more on the religious aspect of the holiday rather than the secular. At the asilo the boys were preparing a show for the parents, and I looked forward to the first celebration of the season. 

However, we had a connection with many different rituals and routines, and as we looked through the photographs of Christmases past, the boys became excited and wanted to reproduce what they saw and vaguely remembered: a decorated tree with presents underneath delivered by a mysterious Santa who came riding a sleigh at night. They eagerly agreed to making Christmas lists—Paul writing and James dictating. Margaret Ann and Matthew had no idea of what we were all on about but echoed the words they heard the boys repeating: Santa, present, treeee! We wanted to celebrate Christmas as usual, but George and I found we had to compromise and improvise to create a holiday like the ones we had known. First up was the tree.