My grandmother was my world – pure and simple. Just watching her cook while I sat on a stool with my elbows perched on the counter was, to me, the perfect day. She would be covered with flour and let me eat the cookie dough, and always made me promise not to tell. I would do anything she asked, except, I never became a dentist. She hated going to the dentist and for years, she would tell me to be one. I often wonder where my life would be today if I had taken her advice. I’m not sure looking in people’s mouths would have been satisfying, but every now and then I think how fun it would be to knock people out and cause them pain.
Ma had an affliction with the evil eye. She believed individuals wished her harm or were jealous. Now, even when I was young, I knew that oil and water didn’t mix, but about once a year, Ma would take a small saucer and fill it with water and into this she would add a few drops of olive oil. If the oil made large circles, which it always did, she would exclaim that someone was wishing her harm.
That superstition was to stick around for years as I also can picture so clearly, my grandmother pouring the oil into the bowl of water. One time she took the bowl and swirled it over her head before peering into what the fates had in store for her. Of course, there were also the strange little deer heads that hung on our front porch. Cursed by someone I can’t recall, as ugly as they were, we were never allowed by my grandmother to remove them.
One of the Angiulo Brothers (a known Mafia family) lived in one of the white single family homes near us, right at the corner of Emerald and Spring Streets. Your mother’s aunt lived one street over and every time Ma and your mother walked by the house, in case Angiulo came out, Ma would say, “Walk a little faster.”
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| 1971. I can still remember the feel of her sparkly green dress. |
Looking back, there are wonderfully comical moments. Of all the memories I have, there is one that I cannot recall. One that I am glad I was spared, is when my grandmother first became ill. Perhaps, I’ve blocked that out or fate has spared me that pain. I just remember that she had gone away for a short time but then was back. There was no talk of illness.
I asked Ma’s doctor how she was doing, and he bluntly told me she was going to die. I went numb and wanted to punch his lights out. Years, later, Pa was so angry with me for not telling him. In the hospital, she would often slide down in bed and when I put my hand under her shoulder, she was so light. I almost threw her through the headboard. I still remember her saying to me, “I feel okay. I’m not going to die, I hope.”
My grandmother returned home after that first hospital stay and I was clueless as to the evil sickness that was ravaging her body. I still ran downstairs and spent every second with her before I had to go to bed. And then one day, she was back in the hospital. It seemed as if it were weeks since I’d seen her. My brother and I would sit in the waiting room during visiting hours while my parents disappeared into the hallway and up the elevators. I read my Batman comic book cover to cover and I can remember the smell and the sounds all around me, but I cannot recall the conversation between my brother and me. Maybe we didn’t even speak.
Young children were not allowed in the hospital rooms, but one night, my parents came downstairs and told me the greatest news I’d ever heard. She wanted to see us the next day. My grandmother wanted to see me. I closed the comic book and that night I went to bed so incredibly happy, until, at 2 in the morning, my mother’s sobbing on the edge of my bed woke me up. My room was dark, yet the light was on in the kitchen. I heard my father's voice as he spoke in a failed whisper on the phone. My mother was heaving, my bed continued to shake and instantly, my world crumbled.
There was such heavy rain the night Ma died. It was dark and the storm seemed to ravage everything, but when the sun rose it was bright and sunny. I have always pictured my mother ascending to heaven in that sunshine.
What is death to an eight-year-old boy? I don’t think I could even grasp the concept of what happened beyond the fact that something I loved so much was gone. My father was 40 years old that June day. My grandmother was 68 years, 4 months and 14 days old. Both age concepts are still so wrong and hard to grasp for me. My brother refused to go into the funeral home, instead he stood panicked in the lobby crying uncontrollably. I looked at my mother with a fierce determination and gripping her hand so tightly that I could feel my knuckles turning white, I walked inside, knelt in front of my grandmother, kissed her hand and saw her one last time to bid her goodbye.
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