For Nonna

Four days ago, I said goodbye to one of the most beautiful loves in my life, my mother-in-law. She passed away at home, after a few months of declining health. She was surrounded by her daughter, her cousin and the women of a community who stood side-by-side for a lifetime of life changes. She was at peace in the very place where she was born. Her life was, by some accounts small, but I’d say it was rich in all the ways that matter.

I am bereft and in these early days a little unmoored. However, I am grateful that on the morning of her last day, I got to tell her how much I love her. She got to hear her granddaughter’s voice. We got to say goodbye.  If not in person, in heart and in spirit.

Readers will know how charged this loss is for me and for Zoela. We have lost a pillar. You can imagine we will spend many days, months and years to come trying to integrate it and also hold onto her incredible life force. For now, we are going easy. For now, we are trying to imagine this world without her voice, her care, her wisdom, her loving embrace, and of course, the incredible way she expressed her love through the language of food and meals meant to heal and fortify.

I ask for your light and love.

I ask that you send it to Sicily, to a beautiful cobblestoned street in Aliminusa. To my sister-in-law, Franca and my nieces. But, I also ask that we celebrate Nonna’s life by returning her example of love and multiplying it by a thousand times in acts of grace and forgiveness. That is what she did. Always.

Xo, -t