Everytime we return to Italy, we visit Pops at Cimitero Comunale where his body rests in its very own niche in the Schiavone Family chapel.
As Sandra unlocks the door to the Schiavone Chapel, I keep thinking not all grief is mine to have, to experience. But all grief is personal, palpable.
The key turns and the long, tiny doors squeak open. The thick air escapes out as Sandra steps in. Looking left, she sees her father’s picture and his name, Antonio Gaetano Iaderosa, in gold letters and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her face smile like that before. Recognition can be joyful and equally heartbreaking.
Sandra and her mother, Ninuccia, and her brothers, Tonino, Franco and Lilino arrived in New York’s harbor fifty-three years ago, yet Sandra says she still can feel her mother’s hands shaping her hair into braids, readying her for her long voyage to America.
Papa Antonio had immigrated to Detroit the year before, 1967, in order to find a job and a place for his family to live. He was so excited to be meeting them at the train station on Michigan Avenue.
So, all these Septembers later, there is so much to remember. Sandra’s mother, Ninuccia, never acclimated to her American life as she had hoped. Detroit’s multicultural mix and big-city feel was beyond her scope. Sandra believes her mother’s homesickness was so grave, so profound that it was the impetus, the catalyst of her long illness.
Ninuccia died in November 1973. There was no treatment for her rare kind of stomach cancer and the progression from diagnosis to her final days was a matter of months, not enough time for anyone especially a little girl to articulate any kind of good-bye. No time.
Ninuccia wanted to go home. Papa Antonio escorted his wife’s body back to Cervino, Italy alone. It was too expensive to bring any of the children with him. They said their goodbyes here in Detroit.
Every time we go to Italy, we visit Sandra’s parents. Her mother was buried in the village where she was born, Cervino. Sandra’s father is buried in Maddaloni, the hometown of his second wife, Anna, who survives him.
Sandra said Pops was always meant to be married. Losing Ninuccia was devastating. Remaining alone for the rest of his life would’ve been yet another tragedy; Sandra was happy her father married Anna and made a new life for himself. So when he died, he felt it only made sense to be buried in his wife’s family chapel, self-assured that his first wife, Ninuccia, would understand and not be hurt by his choice.
Grief made complex by distance, by time, by new losses and …
… home, however we remember it, heals us.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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