FOR MY ZIA RITA
When I look at one of the last photos I have of her, the deep lines around the mouth, the mild, sallow complexion, I am always aware that this is, was, an ailing soul. And her hoarse breath rattling in her throat, in attempts to catch it, I hear as, for example, she walked me up the hill toward Ampere’s Tower or clambered inside the statue of Borromeo’s monument. Her long, slow stride so recently supporting her semi-paralysed body. All of which should portray a woman ten or fifteen years older than she was.
Some might say it was the war that took her eventually, and they might be correct. Born into a country of immense poverty and depredation, her child’s lungs succumbing so early to disease that in later life would take one of them away. The war’s effects and residue running a singular course up to now, today, sixty three years hence.
But, returning to that photo, it is her eyes that give away the truth of my wonderful Italian aunt. The temperament of faith, knowledge, wisdom. And her forbearance of suffering with humour and dignity. They are dark, almost black eyes, perhaps a certain jewel, but most fervently alive and aware. Watching, absorbing the circumstance of the family gathering around her in the lakeside restaurant. And I’m certain hiding any pain or discomfort for the benefit of those she loved. Her tales filled with characters that may well have been archetypes of her own soul: the thinker, the priest – good people rewarded with dignity.
The sound of bombs; the alacrity of boiling water on a stove, seething ready for pasta.
I hear her deep voice, and her hand upon my face cherishing my existence, believing in me without saying a word. Laughing, even in our lacking tongue – my faltering Italian, her stubbornly pigeon English. Or perhaps we are up at the ‘orrido’, watching the cascades of water coming down from the mount above as she tells me tales, small legends – born of truth - that even she has never got to the bottom of.
Laughter commonly around a table with a healthy serving of food and her patient, lidded eyes watching with contentment. The methodical measure of a stovetop coffee percolator beginning to bubble through.
Then, here, the snow falls. Uncorrupted when I wake before sunrise, there is a gift in the day. The slip-back light gathering. Something about it that maintains her dignity despite the details of the forthcoming tests and examination of her final corporeality. By the time the snow has gone, melted in a few days, I hope she too will have been put to rest.
