Continued

I know it’s been a while, but once I got back from Italy I went straight to work and then… well…. I went out. I thought I needed to go out, try and get myself to smile again, laugh again and to be with my friends again. I got back on Sunday March 14th. I went out and stayed out late three nights out of the work week. I thought if I was left alone, I would break. I really felt that I didn’t get a chance to mourn. I had to be strong for my mother. I had to be there for my mother and father. They finally saw their family they haven’t seen in a life time. My father had a chance to see his cousin Giovanni and when we walked through the door they both said how old they got. 32 years had sneaked up right on them. Ok well not sneak up but they let 32 years go by. Even though Giovanni came to America in 76', my father hasn’t been in Palermo for 32 years.

Let me continue the last story that I didn’t get to finish. Zia Pina.

Zia Giovanna came through and Tony and Tamara’s face came to a calm. Me? Well it’s weird; some people either freak out or just freeze when a crazy situation happens. It reminds me of a time when I saved my niece's life. My mother and I were in the kitchen (this is when I lived at home with them) when my niece Eryn was watching television in the living room. She was wearing a pink slipper pajamas (you know those onesies pj’s that have feet) I will never forget that. My mother was by the sink and I was sitting in one of the chairs facing the wall. My niece Eryn came running into the Kitchen with her back on the wall facing me. I think she was four years old at the time. Her mouth was wide open as her face was stricken with fear. She kept grabbing the top of her pajama’s, she couldn’t breathe. My mother stood in shock then started screaming for me to help her. I grabbed Eryn by her hand and brought her to the other side of the table where there was more room. I went down on my knees and put my right hand on her back and my left hand on her stomach right under the middle of rib cage and pushed in and up real hard. The grape, well I think it was a grape or was it an orange, doesn’t really matter, what ever it was came out flying right out her mouth and landed about five feet away. I saved her life. Till this day, I always wondered what would have happened if I wasn’t home that day. Then, I drift those thoughts away because she wouldn’t be here today. My mother would have not known what to do. My mom is like that, she gets scared and just falls into shock. So back to Zia Giovanna.

She sat there in the middle of this cold brick funeral home with her legs straight out and her coat wide open with family watching with tears. She sat up and they walked her outside to get some fresh air. There was a woman who must have been in charge and informed one of my cousins that they were going to send Zia Pina off and to say our last goodbyes. We did and it hurt. Rosalia and I were last to watch them put a steel covering over my aunt and weld it on, then they put the wooden cover over it and drilled 24 screws on it. I counted as they did each one. Zia Pina had a gold slick cross on her coffin. Her name and they used her maiden name was on a gold plaque with her birth and death date. Rosalia and I held each other close as we cried. I watched them take the trolley to the hearse. Two men picked up the coffin and tried to put it into the hearse, but the trolley was in the way. Rosalia tried to move it, but it was still in the way. It was like if my Zia Pina didn’t want to be put in the hearse. I stood there and watched and sulked it all in. I cried more in the inside than the out. In time they put her shell, because her soul is now around all of us, in.

We went to the cemetery and they put her flowers outside the mausoleum, my Zia Pina was going to be put in a wall. One of the workers brought Zia Pina all the way up and pushed her in. I watched and then watched everyone around me. I felt everyones pain and ignored mine. I was overwhelmed. We didn’t want to leave, but we had too. My mother’s pain ripped my heart and knowing that my mother will never see her sister again is killing me slowly and dreadfully. We all picked a flower from the arrangements and put it up high were Zia Pina’s body lives now. She will forever be in my heart and thoughts. She will always be alive in me.