From Italy with Love

Yesterday, Sofia blew kisses to her Zia from the dock, the boat not so far from us, the kisses sent through the air on wind. I wish I could send you kisses right now, too. That we would all be on a boat, making our way to different corners of Procida. Here, we would stop for a dip in the sea, there we would climb rocks and fish. At the port, we would tie our boat, jump onto the moveable lightweight planks and walk on cobblestone streets beneath tall pastel-colored palazzi with signori sitting on their green iron balconies. There are so many memories here. Too many to recall, although I slip in stories here and there "Do you see that yellow building at the top of the hill, with the green light, and bell tower? That's where mamma & papa got married." All the stories have in common is the beginning of love. How Mimmo and I met, where we had our first apartment, where we were when we decided to get married. The characters in the story show up when we hit the piazza or the port. I need to move through the difficult feelings as I write, as opposed to hiding them, or distracting myself. I keep finding a need for comfort as I approach them - like needing a hot cup of tea with honey and lemon on a dreary, wet winter day. Here the sun shines, even when it's hiding behind clouds, there's more light illuminated in the sky than some of the sunniest Portland or Berkeley days. No one is telling me how to do this exactly, so perhaps I just need to be kind enough to myself to know I will find my way through writing about it. Salvatore, I wrote this on your birthday two days ago: Life continues. The church bells ring. The old couples will be eating gelato on the cement benches in the piazza. The vespas and electric bicycles and ape & macchine whiz their way through narrow cobblestone streets. The sky will change. Your sister will dance on the beach. And, I will feel joy, but I will also always, always wish you were seeing these moments with us. Living them with us. And, I was never one to imagine you older than you were. Because even as a newborn, you were so old. You lived a lifetime in 10 full days with us. And, I will never forget this day in which you came. Happy birthday, my love. We celebrated you today with another short ferry ride across the sea to Procida. I love you forever and always, here and beyond.

Because I'm still in love with you on this harvest moon

Happy birthday, my sweet boy. It's 6 year today, since you came into the world. We enter into fall. There's a Japanese Moon Festival that I thought I would take your little sister and brother to tonight to celebrate you and look at the harvest moon. It's sold out. Next year? Tonight, instead, we will go to E's house in the countryside and watch the moon there. We'll probably cook some food and maybe make some crafts with the kids. Tears fall singulary from my eyes already throughout the morning and now, at 6 years later, I know they just will and to let them go as they do. What has changed? Not our love. Not our remembrance. Not our longing for you. But, life moves quickly here on planet earth, it does. We live in a new house, new town, new state. Your little sister turned 4 last April and your little brother will be 3 in a couple of months. It's hard for me to write too much without them constantly interrupting me, but I try just the same. We opened up a restaurant - the dream that began with you and making a home for ourself in the states - it came to fruition about 5 years after you were born. I am trying to make larger commitments to myself to finishing writing your story and am applying to a program to help me do that and help me become a stronger writer, in the process. I like to believe that you are still with us in moments. That there is a larger veil that gently enwraps our world with the other world. That we experience together still a love that doesn't die...just as the poem I read before we let you go "love doesn't die, people do. So, when all that is left of me is love, give me away". We gave you away to the sky, to that great Oak tree that I lay beneath in my wheelchair, as I held you. We gave you away to my Papou who I saw taking you into his arms. We gave you away to songs sung in grief, joy, and freedom. Languages like Greek, Italian, Hebrew, Irish, Native American. I continue to live, as does your father, because you taught us to love so greatly that we could create your sister and brother. But, today, we feel most deeply your physical absence in our family. Today, I feel a longing to have you here in my lap. Today, I celebrate you and all the gifts you brought us with your arrival and stay, however brief, so profound were those 10 days, they could have been a lifetime. I love you, sweet boy. Happy 6th birthday!

Tonight/Today

Drinking from the cup of joy
My cup doth over runneth
If you told me that I would give birth to an angel 3 and 1/2 years ago, would I have believed you?
An angel, truly, because he could not stay on this earth for too long
And when he flew away, I thought that my soul did too
I did not want to stay on this earth any longer
Yet, my tree, my quercia, my love, my Mimmo mio
you held me down, you said we must fight on, that we needed to live
I did not believe in many moments that I could go on
And, yet, with you, I did
If you told me that on that angel’s Saint’s Day I would find out that I was pregnant once again, would I have believed you?
I carried that fiery spirit, knew her so well, knew her as my Sofia,
the one who I had always thought I would carry
And, even though I couldn’t believe it was possible
that I could give birth to a real live baby
You came, like a dancer making her grand solo finale
Leila said it was as if I did a pirouette, turned around, and caught you
And I cried, oh I cried, with joy
It was possible
If you told me that on my daughter’s first birthday in Italy, I would find out that I was to carry another one along in this journey, I don’t know if I’d have believed you
And, you, my boy of mystery and wonder,
My Phoenix, my Galileo, my Lion, my Star
You were familiar to me and yet unrequited
would we really do this all over again?
Yes, we did and you came on the full moon
at 12.12am, silent, yet so so present
Caught in the hands of our doula, Constance
who said catching you was like catching a waterfall
The team of doctors missed your birth
came rushing in, shocked, with mouths wide open
as I held you on my chest and you stared at me, stared at the walls,
no screaming, no dramatics (althought one could argue being birthed with no doctor in the room is pretty dramatic)
I said, well, you just didn’t want all that attention
I am complete
Mother to three
Wife to one
True to my spirit
Full of gratitude and love on this night here
holding you in my arms to sooth the pains of your new teeth as they come
Singing and laughing with your sister as I put her to sleep
running my finger up and down Mimmo’s side
tracing that strong body
I
am
so
damn
lucky
Well, perhaps, luck has nothing to do with it
But, if you told me I was the luckiest woman alive tonight
Not because I won some award
or everyone knows my name
but because I am complete
just as I am
in my house
with my whole family asleep as I type
I would believe you
Because you would be right

Baptismal Waters

Sunday we are baptizing Gabriele. It is not an event that I saw coming, and yet yesterday I found myself in the Richmond room of the Greek Orthodox Church in Oakland. This was the room that 3 1/2 years ago Mimmo and I reluctantly joined our family and friends to eat fish following the funeral of our son, Salvatore. What do I remember about being in that room? The round tables, the numb feeling, the brightness of a sunny day, the darkness of our grief, the family members and friends who came to visit as I just sat there, unable to move. So, now at 3 1/2 years later, with Gabriele in the baby bjorn, he and I entered the empty Richmond room with paper and pen in hand. I came to see the room and decide how I wanted the set up of the tables. Such a different day, such a different occasion, but memories came back to me like ghosts trailing the room.

This is where our table was.

Wow, I never even noticed there was a fireplace or those great big windows.

I decided that, of course, we would need rectangular tables this time. That, of course, we'd need to be facing ourselves in a different direction. Last time we were on the west end of the room. This time I wanted us north, looking south. I realized that almost all the people who would be attending Gabriele's small baptism were also there for Salvatore's funeral. All these details that I was conscious of in this moment and completely unimportant the last time.

What I remember of that day was Mimmo going into hypoglycemia before we left. My 3 youngest cousins outside when we arrived, prepared to carry our small baby boy's plain pine coffin. Walking down the aisle of the church following his coffin and wailing like a matriarch in an old Greek tragedy. I remember being angry. I remember Father Tom speaking about Salvatore's name in Greek. I remember exiting the church and plopping myself on the stairs with Mimmo, both of us unable to move. I remember watching Justin and Matteo, the only 2 small children there, playing while we sat outside and feeling some sense of life by being in the presence of their beauty, innocence, and youth.

What is the use of these memories, a part of myself asks. It happened. You are here now. Blessed with two beautiful children. Life has returned to its normal pace - in our case, the fast trot of a horse, not the slow, hiding turtle's pace I kept in my grief. The hugs and empathetic glances I received back then by my family have returned to emotional distance and occasional judgement. I feel that feeling-sorry-for-myself-everyone-forgets-but-me-be-here-now stance. But, what I have in common with then and now is that I still am without Salvatore. I still am this woman from the same lifetime (just 3 1/2 years later, infact). The difference is now I get that feeling of grief in my throat, tears coming up where before my whole body was submerged and the crying continued loud and soft, under covers with pulled down shades. Now I have thin white curtains that let in the light. Now I have Gabriele's smile, Sofia's potty training, and breastfeeding to keep me occupied.

I still miss you, my dear boy. I still remember.

Where to start?

I guess I start from here. It has been, well, years. There are many reasons why I could not write and was trying to navigate the world of just living (without publicly blogging it) and opening up new doors. I have been in a mama's writing group that I started in the new year and last night one of the speakers was a writer who has written a memoir of losing her husband when she was 7 months pregnant and had a one year old. She talked about blogging and I was brought back to the memory of this time. Writing here. Time is still a tease and yet, it has shifted me into new places. Now, I have an almost 2 year old and an almost 4 month old (that have already stopped me several times from typing this post) and I am always mamma to 3. I don't know if I want to be public anymore with my thoughts and perhaps, I don't need to worry because maybe no one is reading this anyway. :-) But, I do need to keep writing. So, here I am. Much more to say, but for now this is a start. Gotta get dressed and begin the day.