In Memoriam

My Aunt Vincenza passed away today. She was born in Italy 104 years ago.

When her older sister, my great-grandmother, my "Nana," passed away seven years ago at the age of 99, I first started to consider just how much could happen in one person's life. In both of their cases, they were born in small villages in the Alps where they milked goats as children and rode in donkey-drawn carriages if they had to go any distance. When they decided to move to this country, they spent a week on a ship having absolutely no idea of what was ahead of them. My great-grandmother and -grandfather moved here in hopes of escaping the rise of fascism. What they found here was a nation where they could prosper, and quite fortunately (for me), raise a family that would continue for generations to come. By the time they passed, everyone owned a car, man had walked on the moon, two world wars had been fought and the rustic village from which they came had become more a novelty than a way of life.

To Italia and Joseph, Catherine, Edward, Vincenza, and the countless and nameless others, I thank you. Though I may have not known you well, or in many cases not at all, you are the people who made me. For that I am forever in debt.