A walk down Genesee Street.

The thing about being back in central New York, where I consider whatever roots I have to be, is that I immediately feel nostalgic about everything. Utica was once a lovely city, back in its glory days, but it has been reduced to a ghetto, rife with drugs, violence and prostitution. For the first time in my memory I was told not to go out after dark. But I felt at home anyway. I don’t know if it was the fresh bagels I ate for breakfast, the homemade lasagna I ate for lunch, the (real!) pizza I ate for dinner or the rich (but not too heavy!) cannole and tiramisú from Florentine’s that I ate for dessert, but it felt like I was home again after a very long trip. 

During my stay at the hospice, I took a walk down Genesee Street with my grandpa. He’s a simple man who spent 55 years being married to a complex woman, and he’s still not one to be expressive about his feelings. But during our walk, he talked the whole time. Genesee Street is his turf, his and Gramma’s. He volunteered for many years at the food pantry just up a block, and she taught Sunday school at St. Francis, the local parish. As we walked, he pointed out all the places he used to frequent, and I remembered quite a few of them from when I was a little girl. I have fond memories of visiting him at the food pantry and helping him hand out stuffed grocery bags to the poor. It’s something I haven’t thought about in many many years, but the memories came flooding back. And I thought, gosh, my background and my heritage are so much richer than I realize. 

My dad was born into a pure-blooded Italian-American family that stems from Calabria, Italy. My ancestors emigrated to central New York state at the start of the 20th century and most of their offspring have stayed in the area since then. Within the Trunfio clan (Gramma’s maiden name was Nancy Trunfio) there is the family restaurant (started by Gramma’s brother Mike), the gangster (Gramma’s dad, who sat in jail on two separate occasions for his penchant for boot-legging, ”But,” as Gramma always made sure to point out, ”he did it for his family.”), and the eccentric aunt (Gramma’s sister, a millionaire who looks like a homeless person). I come from these people. And I think it’s wonderful. We’re eccentric and dysfunctional, and we have enough quirks to feed the script for a family sitcom (”Everybody loves Nancy” anyone?). 

I grew up as a third-culture kid. My dad is Italian-American, my mom is Swedish, and we lived in the United States until I was 22. My parents raised me on the road, so to speak. We traveled a lot and it’s now become my identity, the moving around, the traveling. I can’t conceive what it would be like to stay in one place. I haven’t lived more than three years in the same town/country since I was 16, and I love my transient life. So here comes my confession: I’ve kind of categorized my extended Italian-American family as small-town, simple folk. Like I said before, they grew up in central New York and have stayed put for three generations. But now I’m beginning to see that they stayed put so that I could roam free. They grew roots so that I could grow wings. They provided depth so that I could have breadth. That, my friend, is richness. And all this from taking a walk down Genesee Street....

Feelings, family and food.

My grandmother died a week ago today and her recent passing has set in motion a lot of different thoughts and feelings regarding family, my own cultural identity and the role of food in my grieving process. When I arrived on the scene, Gramma was already pretty out of it. She was on a steady stream of morphine and wasn’t as communicative as she had been the week before when my brother and cousins were there. The disappointment at not having a final ”moment” with her was something I had to digest, which led to an odd emotional detachment on my part during the course of my week-long stay. But I did hold her hand and sing James Taylor’s ”You can close your eyes” the night I arrived, which will have to count as our ”moment.” I didn’t notice a visible reaction from her, but I think she appreciated it. 

It’s odd to sit around and wait for someone’s death, but that’s the only thing we (me, my grandpa, aunt, uncle and dad) could do. And so we did as any Italian family would: We ate and talked and cried at uneven intervals (I must say though that the eating was done at very even intervals). Friday night was spent on the couch listening to my dad and his siblings sort through their complex relationship with their mother. The struggle between letting all of the past conflicts go and holding on to relational wounds colored our last moments with her. There are so many relational dynamics in my family that it would be impossible to enlighten the uninitiated, but one of the main themes was our inherited need to control a situation. That’s the one ALL of us have in common. Other elements were envy, worry over money, and the ever hovering catholic-protestant tension. As my uncle points out, the Reformation happened in his family and it’s something that has consistently been one of the elephants in the room ever since my dad and his siblings left the Catholic church in favor of a more ”radical” relationship with their Creator, much to the disappointment of their pious mother. 

But on the topic of elephants in the room, I have meditated a lot on how important it is to leave no unfinished business behind when you or someone you know dies. My Italian family is dysfunctional and chaotic, but their relationships are surprisingly healthy in comparison to my mom’s side of the family. The thing about Italian families is that nobody can keep their mouth shut. This is as much a pain as it is a blessing. Yes, we get mad, yell, argue and guilt trip because we find it impossible to keep our feelings to ourselves. But I’d rather have it that way. Volcanic eruptions occur on a regular basis and conflicts are  expected. But that’s okay, because when the ash cloud blows over, we’re still talking to each other. Because we love each other. And mostly because we can’t shut up. 

This is not the Swedish way. My mother comes from true nordic blood (heck, her family tree stems back to the first Viking king of Sweden, Gustav Wasa). This means of course that I grew up half and half, and this bi-polar heritage has caused somewhat of an inner conflict that I still can’t define, categorize or solve. My entire life I’ve been told that I’m Italian on the inside and Swedish on the outside.  Spending time with my dad’s side of the family only served to elevate my awareness of how emotional I am. Yet I felt detached almost the entire time I was there. I feel everything so deeply, yet I can’t put words to those feelings like my relatives can. Normally I cry at the turn of a hat, but I didn’t shed a tear all week except at the very end.

Gramma passed away exactly 30 minutes before I had to leave to catch the train and make my way back to Sweden. She had seen all of her children, she had seen all of her siblings, she had seen her best friend of 70 years. She had seen her nieces and nephews.  And she had seen her grandchildren. Hundreds of people came to her wake and funeral to pay their respects. She was a complex woman, one who incited a lot of arguments and hurt feelings, but she really did love her family, and all of us felt it. 

All of the hospice nurses remarked time and again what a wonderful family we are, but the irony is that we’ve always thought that we make the people around us miserable. So I remarked back: "We Greco’s are better together than we are apart." And that’s the truth. 

If you’re reading this, call your mother and tell her that you love her. Forgive your father for disappointing you. Forgive your brother for outshining you. Forgive your sister for criticizing you. In the light of eternity, grievances don’t matter. Relationships are the only legacy you will leave behind, so make sure they are worth every tear you’ve shed. As the Sade song goes, ”Love is stronger than pride.”