Goodnight, Nonna, Goodbye, One of The Main Link To My Family

My Nonna died on January 21st, 2021. Really, she had led a busy life full of many great rewards. She had six amazing children (sadly two had passed away before she died) and a plethora of grandchildren. She was a firm but fair, stern but loving Italian woman who despite moving to Glasgow when she was younger had never really kicked her Italian accent.

It’s now obviously been more than a year since she died, and I am only just fully coming to terms with it. Everyone was close to her, you see.

It was an Italian thing I guess, or just a “family done right” thing. For the first 21 years of my life, she was always there cooking a big meal on Sundays and on special occasions too.

When I say cooking, in the earlier days before she started having health concerns, this would include making her own pasta from scratch, making lasagne from scratch or even making pizza from scratch. Along with the pasta/Italian dish, she would also make two large bowls of salad, some of the finest, single-bite and spellbindingly delicious roast potatoes and some roast chicken.

She would make that for whoever came, whether it was 15, 10 or 6. She even made up bowls so that the siblings, my aunties and uncle, could take some food home to the grandchildren that were not able to make it.

So, while I am incredibly sad about the fact that she’s gone and can’t speak to her right now, I think she had a fantastic life and achieved so much.

What I do find hard, is the circumstances of her death and the fallout. She died in hospital, where she had been for a few months due to Covid-19 restrictions, after being pretty much housebound for a long time.

I find it hard that the last time I saw her in the flesh, face to face, was pre-Covid. That I couldn't see her before she died and couldn't see her when she died.

When the time came for her funeral, as one of the oldest of the grandchildren, I decided to not go to the funeral, simply because numbers were tight, and I felt it would be better for one of my younger cousins to go.

I don’t regret that decision. Well, maybe I do a little? I think at the time it was the best decision for me. However, if I had to replay that period again like some kind of Groundhog Day madness, I may well have decided to go to the funeral, and I’d be writing something different.

The thing that saddens me the most is how much she was an anchor for the family, or maybe an anchor that kept me connected to my extended family.

I said that for the first 21 years, barring those times when I was being an unsociable teenager and didn’t want to go, I went to my Nonna’s for lunch on a Sunday. There were also other days in between, especially when I was younger, she or one of my aunties would babysit me, my cousin and my brother (when he came along).

My life changed drastically when I was 21 and when I met someone that at the time, I thought was special (and because things at home were not the best) I moved down south to England from Glasgow where I had lived all my life.

That inevitably created a chasm between my family and me, or at least that’s how I see it. The family I had been so close to, I barely had any contact with, mostly through choice and just being busy living.

Then even when I returned to Scotland, after living first in the south of England and then the north of England, I still had a lot going on in my life that meant I didn’t give as much of a commitment as I did to go to see my Nonna or the rest of my family when I was little. I guess that’s partly because mum would drive us there.

There were times when I kept in better touch with my cousins, thanks to social media, and more regular visits to Nonna's, but I never kept at it. Mainly because I felt, as the oldest and having been away and out of contact with them all for so long, that I had little in common. Other than family and the shared memories of those 21 years.

Nonna was always welcoming, always hospitable, and always loving to me, my wife, and my children.

So, then when my beloved Nonna died, it was almost like the end of an era in so many ways and the severing of one of the strongest ties to the rest of my family.

Originally when she died the thing that went through my head was “who will do Sunday dinner for all the others now?”, and “Where will they have it?” as my family sold her house. It all ended with her. Though for me, it ended a long time before she was too ill and before Covid.

Now I am not sure it even matters, anyway.

Mum is good, we continue to see each other regularly and speak to each other often. She visits and sees her grandchildren.

I don’t blame anyone really for this disconnection and maybe with time, it will get better. I definitely could have tried harder, but also, they could have tried harder too. But, the majority of them are all adults now, getting married and getting on with life.

They are close to each other because they have the shared experience of the years I missed.

Nothing really stays exactly the same forever. The sad thing is that I only realised what a good thing I had in my life when it was far too late to save it.

Goodnight, Nonna. Goodbye, one of the main links to my family.