The Password

-Dad’s not her password anymore

-What do you mean?! Where?

-Her Gmail. It’s not working.

My brother Bud had a tendency to talk about stuff as if I knew the entire context of the conversation he had had in his head. He took after Mom that way. 

I got why a change of passwords would be upsetting, in this context. Bud and I came from a generation where using your significant other as your password was a true sign of commitment. Thus, Dad’s password had always been MomsName1968, Mom’s password DadsName1968 and that was it. Bud and I would later create other passwords, delegate our devices to create them, but our folks never did.

I vaguely recalled Mom ranting about special characters and what’s so special about them and why can’t I keep this password what’s wrong with it anyway I can’t even find that under line anywhere, but I never followed up, and now here we are.

-OK Bud, that’s fine. We’re going to receive the legacy email with all the passwords in a few weeks anyway. And I can still access her phone when I’m there.

-Right. Forgot you had the fingerprints and stuff.

I did have the fingerprints recorded on Mom’s phone. I also had her location, her instructions for the funeral, her directions on what she wanted to wear for it, all the practical info. Bud was the one who had to arrange all of that, since I was living an ocean away, and yet, I was the one Mom trusted with all the info. I was the one who could carry the mental and emotional load.

An episode comes to mind. I was 9 or 10, at a sports competition. Mom was low-key bragging about how level-headed and quiet I always was, when I lost it. I burst out crying because I had lost the match, Mom was surprised and disappointed that I had proven her wrong in front of people. I just needed to be sad. Bud and Dad would always be scared of my sadness; Mom would mostly be embarrassed. I just needed to be sad. I just need to be sad. But I’m, once again, the one who can take it. The one who can be level-headed and figure out the practical stuff. While Bud is doing all the work, and neither of us is truly seen.

______

It wasn’t all about food, but an awful lot of it was about food. Mom was one of the reasons and a fellow victim of my eating disorder and body dysmorphia. But she was also the one who I shared some of the best meals with. Her memory lives in the tea she bought me because I told her I couldn’t find a good one. And in the instant coffee Dad wouldn’t remember was her favorite, so I took it with me on the way home. 

Before moving overseas, I savored every last meal with them as if it was going to be the last one ever. Until one eventually was. I made her her last risotto; I bought her her last treats. When we received the instructions for surgery preparation, that’s when it hit me, that she might never have a bunch of food again. I tried sharing that with Bud.

-That’s good, though, you know. Everyone should follow that diet. It’s really good to cleanse from those foods.

He kept talking about PH imbalances, I stopped listening. It wasn’t about the food. At the height of my eating disorder, Mom or I would stop at the best bakery in town to buy a sweet raisin bread roll and share it over the sink before Dad could realize and want one, too. It was the one treat I was always able to enjoy. This went on for over 20 years. Not like Mom wouldn’t try to guilt trip us on how we shouldn’t be eating this stuff, it’s so bad it’s so fat. But we would, nonetheless. When the doctors insisted that Mom needed to gain weight (ah! How the tables turn, I thought), I bought her the raisin bread roll. The day of her surgery I tried buying one for good luck, for me – they had run out. I only had it the day before her funeral, over the sink before Dad came home. It was one of many pieces of her I lost over time.

______

I’m not sure when it started, but I know when I noticed. She wasn’t texting me twice a day anymore. Days went by without her initiating a text conversation, a week could go by without calls with her and Dad; even those calls seemed shallow, as if they were trying to cut them short to move on to something more urgent. Nothing was more urgent than talking to me, in regular times. When she eventually shared her diagnosis – no, when Bud pushed her to share it with me, - it all made sense. When I flew back, I had to ring the bell. She hadn’t been waiting by the doorbell to buzz me in like she used to. Another piece lost. She would let me do house chores, she felt too tired to keep up with those. Another piece lost. She barely read the newspaper, until we stopped buying it altogether. She stopped humming / whistling / randomly singing around the house. That was a huge piece, her voice. I was forever grateful to my past self, for deciding to record Mom and Grandma on a random Tuesday a decade ago. I wouldn’t have either of their voices to listen to, otherwise. After surgery, she never fully recovered her natural voice. I realized that thanks to a dream. She was in our childhood backyard hanging clothes, humming. She asked me what we should cook for my aunt, who was coming over for lunch. I knew it was a dream; I started sobbing. She came to comfort me and asked me if I can’t come back the way I used to be, what’s even the point? and I knew she meant it. I woke up sobbing and holding what felt like her hand in mine. That was the last time I heard her voice. Another piece lost.

______

There was this short story I read as a child, it was called “Seven Floors.” There was a hospital that treated only one specific disease; mild cases were on the 7th floor, the more severe the case, the lower the floor. The protagonist was first admitted to the top floor, as his was a very mild case. There were multiple reasons and excuses to move him to lower and lower floors (we need the bed, there’s maintenance on this floor, we’ll just move you temporarily…), until he was in the basement floor and died. Sometimes, it felt like that with Mom.

The doctors were initially optimistic on her chances of recovery. They said her symptoms were normal, even the grossest ones. A lot of it didn’t sit right with us, but we weren’t doctors. So, we trusted that she was being admitted to what that short story would consider the 4th or 5th floor, and she would eventually get better. She wanted me and only me to take her to the hospital. I made a point of breathing in the crispy, cold air that morning. She couldn’t be bothered; she was in too much pain. She didn’t know that was going to be the last outdoor air she would ever breathe. 

I’m now breathing a little deeper, loving a little harder, hugging a little tighter, because I saw what I could be missing out on.

After surgery there were complications, “only temporary” we were told. Except they kept piling up. It became a rollercoaster of “she’s not gonna make it” to “we weren’t expecting this much improvement”. It felt like she was condemned to the basement, and that’s when she started mentioning death.

______

She would gesture “death” to me behind other people’s backs. I don’t know why, but I can speculate. I could talk about that very matter of fact. I could still crack some dark jokes. Just like when we talked about their funerals months before, between talking about what to have for dinner and what happened at work. We had talked about “their” funerals because she was not the one who anybody expected to go first. So, she had started giving me instructions for Dad’s funeral, and since we were at it, she added instructions for her own. 

So, I wasn’t worried about her gesturing “death” in the hospital bed. I wasn’t going to dismiss and deny the gesture – like Dad would, - and I wasn’t going to go philosophical or spiritual – like Bud would. I just acknowledged:

-Yes, Mom, I know you think you’re going to die. Not today, though, your body has decided otherwise. And no, it’s not like we can help you in that direction, it’s still illegal.

At that point, she would gesture exasperation. I get it. I was bombarded by texts from people who wished her some sort of recovery. I was exasperated too. Sometimes, it felt like they were wishing her torture. But they were sending their prayers to the Mom they remembered from before. They hadn’t seen her steady decline, they didn’t realize how huge of a miracle they were wishing for, when talking about a full recovery. Both Mom and I wished we could put “dignified death” on the table, as a good alternative to everything else.

______

-We had time, that was a luxury. We had time to tell her everything we needed to.

Bud was right. But I also realized I didn’t have anything to tell her. Tough love had been her love language to me; practical compliance had been mine towards her.

I visited her wearing new clothes I had picked, asking her for her opinion. She would give me a “thumbs up” or a “good enough (a bit too squared)” gesture. Yes, she could be very detailed in her gestures. I would text her my hairstyle and my ironed clothes, she would reply praising my evolution into adulthood, at over 40. She was using the correct emojis right until the end.

It seems only apt, that she would die when I had just bought clothes for her funeral. Because we knew the end was coming, and I didn’t have dark clothes for the heatwave. I was walking home from the mall when Bud called me. I had been listening to emotional songs, while thinking of all the life that Mom wasn’t going to experience. I was embarrassed on her behalf about my crying in the middle of the street but couldn’t help it. I felt like it was too sunny, the breeze too nice, for her to go without taking notice. She would never walk down the beach, she would never smell the ocean, she would never laugh again.

I went home and wrote what I would say at the funeral.

And I just wanted to be sad.

______

Not going out of our way to let everyone know, to shout it from the rooftops, seemed cruel to me. Sure, Mom was beyond discreet, but her life had touched a lot of people, who would barely even learn about her passing. And I felt like I needed a village or two, to get through that. So, I went rogue and told more people than she would have liked me to. Some broke down in tears, some didn’t bat an eye, others offered a hug, a bottle of water, a tissue to dry my tears – every interaction helped.

Someone said that grief is like a spiky rod in the middle of our soul, which is a fluffy cloud; the soul keeps growing, as more love feeds it, but sometimes it will touch a spike. Grief will never disappear, but it will become more bearable. All the rituals of death – the rituals that serve those who stay more than those who go – help share the load of that grief. 

Being able to imagine how Mom would have critiqued the details of the funeral also helped. Hearing raucous children playing outside the church – a sign that the world moves on even when it stops for us – also helped. Carrying her urn, as if I was holding her on her last walk, helped tremendously. Swapping the traditional “May the earth be light upon you” with a whispered “May you be light upon the earth, because I don’t think it’s ready” also helped. Breathing in the summer breeze, in the brightest sun, while her ashes spread on the green grass, gave me closure and peace.

But at the end of the day, I still needed to be sad. 

______

-Bud, I got the legacy email from Gmail.

-Oh, right. So, what did she change it to?

-Technically, it’s still Dad. But us, too. The password is Rose<3Bud<3Dad_1968

Turns out she found the “under line” after all.

I'm no native (English speaker)

I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't fascinated by languages.

My favorite doll scared the hell out of me when I first met her because she spoke, but she eventually became my favorite doll nonetheless.
She. Not it. I'm Italian, I treat objects as people, get used to that.

I spoke "stuffed animalese" for years; it involved speaking Italian but using just one vowel out of five, and which vowel depended on the region the stuffed animal was from, on the stuffed animals' planet. But that's a different story. I'm just saying that I was an eager linguist at a very young age.
I started translating song lyrics around the same time I started learning them by heart, and singing my heart out with "Back for Good" by Take That and most importantly "Hero" by Mariah Carey, which was my first attempt at translations.
I had never studied English before, and the incoherent result is still hung on my wardrobe door, next to Leo Di Caprio's and Nick Carter's pictures from 90's magazines - an eternal reminder of where I started from and how long a way I've come. I even used to write my acknowledgments and fake interviews, which would end up on some famous artist's album cover or in magazines - because translators deserve their own recognition.

But when the time came to choose a high school and then a major, I chose Italian. Because English for me was "just for fun", I couldn't imagine building a career out of it. And even when I went on to earn a Master's Degree, it was in Teaching Italian.
Then a private tutor - a native English speaker, because I didn't want to waste my time with Italian tutors - suggested I tried the CELTA. Me? Teaching English? I'm no native English speaker, how could that work out? "You know the grammar, you're already three steps ahead."

As it turned out, she was right. But as I was training to become a certified English teacher, my inferiority complex started to emerge. I even cried my eyes out with my insensitive tutor asking why would any student in their right mind want to study English with a non-native speaker. I wish I had some super inspirational words of wisdom to remember about that interaction, but I don't. And I kept struggling with that feeling for years, every time someone asked if the teacher for that course was a native speaker and every time I had to fake it. Because that's what happens to a lot of us: we just fake our way through, either with employers or with students, or both.

Now that I've run my friends' and my own language school for more than five years, it doesn't hurt anymore when a student refuses to have classes with me because I'm no native English speaker. I just feel sorry for them, and I know they'll eventually regret their choice 90% of the times: I know grammar, and that's a huge advantage apparently.

But never in a million years, I would have imagined being in the position I'm in right now. For a lucky series of events, I've ended up working for LinkedIn Learning as an author. It meant challenging my inner voice way too many times, when in the back of my mind I could hear the old refrain "why would I be the right person for this job, I'm no native English speaker?!!" or when, during the shoot, that voice would be screaming "YOU TOTALLY SCREWED THAT WORD UP!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?? HAVEN'T YOU PRACTICED IT A THOUSAND TIMES??"

It was a voice that came from years of teachers diminishing us for our pronunciation, insulting our writing without providing any useful correction; years of students doubting our teaching skills because of our birthplace, years of parents refusing to let their children in our care because of that same reason. It was the voice of years spent being told, "Since you're no native English speaker you're not good enough, you're not worth it."

Now that voice is still there, but I've learned to ignore it. I've learned to listen to people who told me my writing skills were great, and that I needed to practice some of those words, but it really wasn't a big deal if I screwed them up; to people who insisted I was the right person to talk about relationships with other cultures, because I've lived that kind of experience.

We're all natives of one or more places, one or more cultures, one or more languages; none of that should define us as people, and that's the bottom line of everything I do in my job and in my daily life. And that's what I also brought to my experience in LinkedIn, which was one of the destinations of a journey that began at 8 years old, trying to understand the meaning of a song.
I can't wait to see what's next.

Letter to my Grandma

Dear Grandma Lolly,

I've been asked to write about who you were. Actually, that's not true. Nobody asked because everybody knew you. Even those who had never seen you in person nor in a photo had heard us talking so much about you that they felt as if you were part of their families, too.

And they're all gonna be there tomorrow, at your funeral. No, it's not because you conveniently scheduled it for a Saturday afternoon. Nor because they want to show us their support. Or rather, that's not the only reason. They'll be there to give you a - for someone first - last hug, because it was impossible not to love you.

You were not - to me - the perfect TV commercial grandma who had all sorts of treat ready for me when I came home from school. You only cooked very specific dishes – pinza, sarde in saor, tiramisù, mushroom tagliatelle – which you stopped cooking altogether one day, because you just didn't want to anymore.

You were the one who used to destroy all the recycling efforts in town because you just had to fill the organic waste with old newspapers, so that neighbors wouldn't peek and see what you were throwing away "and who knows what they would think!" You were the one who used to consider anybody else much cleverer than you were, "they must think I'm a cuckoo" as you would often tell me lately.

You were the one to tell me to come visit if I missed you, when I moved overseas. You have no idea how much I missed you during those months. But coming back wasn't exactly easy, so I hoped and I prayed that you wouldn't choose to leave us right then. We all thought you were much more fragile and delicate than you actually were.

You would love us nonetheless, but geez there were a bunch of "nonetheless". “Such a white sweater, ahn?!” meant it was way too white, instead of greyish white or beige, which is well picked; “sooo straight your hair, ahn?!” because you'd rather see some curls; “aren't you cold?!” because the neckline was too low-cut. We had so much fun, reading between the lines of your remarks. Yep, that's it. Our family has always laughed and shared meals together, but we cry in private, 'cause what impression would other people have?!

And two - or maybe three? - years ago you got very close to leaving us for real. And I cried my eyes out. Because I wasn't ready; I hadn't come to have lunch with you one last time; I hadn't hugged you; we hadn't shared a good laugh in a while.

When you recovered, I did everything I could to enjoy your presence. So many new laughs, so many hugs, so many (un)told stories with your nonesense storytelling! So why am I still crying now? Well, think of a child and an adult playing together all day. Once the videogame is over, the cartoon is over, and so are the card game and the puzzle, it's 10 p.m. and it's time to say goodbye. Well, I'm that child, looking for yet another game, one more excuse, one more reason not to let you go. And I get no relief thinking that there was enough time to say goodbye because I just wish you were here.

Thanks for the time you devoted us, with all your energies. We're going to celebrate you again tomorrow, all together at the restaurant as you loved to do. And maybe there'll be room for tears, too, whatever impression other people may have.

With all my love,
your baby girl.

#SandyStories - The Backpack

This spring there was a devastating earthquake in Italy, quite far from my hometown, but we still felt it - in my case I also HEARD it. Although the shake wasn't strong enough to make anything fall from the shelves, it scared shit out of us. So while I was lying in my bed waiting for it to end, I was mentally considering what to do in case of evacuation: I should pack my backpack and run to the parking lot nearby. Yeah, that sounded like a damn good idea.

Upstate Update #1 - 15 days to go

It doesn't take that long for me to process data.. yeah right. It's just 10 months I'm putting off this post, not that much. Just 10 months since I won the competition and there are 15 days to go 'til I leave, but I have no freaking clue where the days in between flew.