The Sunshine House

Enveloped within a globe of hill and tree,

Corrine and Robert Morbidelli lived:

Legacies of Italy: though “Nana and Nono” they shall always be, to me.

I think about them often, and their sunny, yellow home, always

Partly dappled by the maple leaves—hidden almost secretly—tucked behind a nebula of windy, twisted streets—where Nono caught me lizards and Nana hung her fuchsia plants for all to love and see, among her many abalone shells in which we potted succulents beneath the eaves. On

Springbrook Road, it was always truly springtime in that lemon, Sunshine House. The deer would eat the fruit in Nono’s garden that he prided so and roamed about, and on Sundays, there’d be hotcakes, sausage, eggs and orange juice (while we) listened to the doves coo by the tulip tree and drainage spouts. (Nono hated them, of course…) And Nana

Entertained our eardrums with the sound of Frank Sinatra while she propagated pathos sprouts. Now, it all seems like a love poem swaddled fondly in my mind—a place where sun and moon aligned within an envelope of time. When I think about the sunny, yellow house on Springbrook Road and all its gardened grounds, I remember how it dazzled in a crescent glow through ivy, vines, and speckled clouds.

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-Gina C. 🧚‍♀️✨

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Author's Note: Corrine, my Nana's name, is my middle name. This is the reason I choose to write under the name Gina C. "Gina C." is also what my mom has always called me as a nickname.

Like many people, I grew up going back and forth to my grandparents' home. In all honesty, I could have written a ten-thousand word poem on how special the Sunshine House was to me.

I was very lucky that my Nana and Nono lived well into my adulthood. Even when my Nono passed in 2013 and my Nana had to be placed in assisted living due to her progressed Alzheimer's disease, my family hung onto the house, trying to soak up every last bit of love and nostalgia it offered before it had to be sold. My brother and I even lived there as roommates between 2014 and 2016.

I am happy to say that I remember the yellow Sunshine House as just that - a place where the light danced beautifully between the trees, a home full of laughter, love, family, and spectacular food.

We knew that whoever bought the house would tear it down. The house was old and well-loved, having been built in the 1940's, and its value was in the acre-long land, not its old, rickety bones. And, while it didn't exactly get torn down, the new owners stripped the inside, painted the outside a dark, steel blue, then flipped it for profit. While this in itself would have made a plausible concept for the In Eclipse challenge, I chose not to focus on the demise of the house, nor on that of my Nana and Nono.

Instead, I wanted to celebrate the Sunshine House - I wanted to honor the countless memories I had there with my family and also reminisce about the way in which the leaves eclipsed the sun's dancing light on its walls.

I can still see the looks on my family's faces as they stared at the Zillow images online, which displayed the house's new renovations when it went up for sale the second time. However, I, myself, never looked at them - not once. I'm glad I didn't. To this day, I still remember the Sunshine House exactly as I'd always known her.

Below are the two best pictures I have of the house that display the lovely shadow patterns of the leaves. You can see how the dappled light of the sun forms almost a crescent moon shape along the walls, porch, and front of the house.

While these images illustrate the right visual I wanted for this poem, I chose not to use them for the story's main picture because they were taken right before it was sold, at which point my family had moved all of my Nana and Nono's things out. The lush pots of plants that adorned the sides of the house are no longer there, nor is the bench or the hanging decor of the three flying mallards. Because of this, the house, in these pictures, just seems a bit steryl and empty to me.

Below are several pictures of the house and the property as I'll always remember them. ❤️ (There are quite a few.) :)

Thank you so much for spending this time with me. 🥹