15 years is a long time. 15 years ago, I was 7 years old and in second grade, getting ready to make my First Holy Communion. My sister was 3, almost 4 and in pre-school. We had moved to California a year and a half before and were still settling in.
15 years is also the amount of time that has passed since my grandfather, Antonio Bifulco, died from complications of lung cancer. I remember that morning like it was yesterday and the hurt still cuts just as deep, if not more now because of the time that has passed. They say that time heals all wounds. Unfortunately, time also allowed me to learn more about my grandfather’s illness and I’ve been witness to the havoc that cancer wreaks on families every day. I have learned the cause of his disease, smoking, and wish like hell that he had grown up in a world that knew the dangers of it. Instead, he grew up in Italy, during the time of war-torn, Mussolini-ruled Italy, having been born in San Giuseppe Vesuviano in 1932. If there was ever a wish in my heart so desperately for a time-machine, it is now.
It was an early, cold February morning. I was up and getting ready for school, like the rest of my family, getting ready for the day. Mom and Dad in their room showering, hair-drying, tie-tying. Little sister’s eyes still full of sleep, her adorable little face probably non-too happy to be awake so early, especially since it was still dark out. Besides she was never really a morning person when she was younger. I thought I had heard the phone ringing, but the details on that are fuzzy. What followed isn’t. I knew something was wrong when I heard my aunt’s voice on the machine downstairs. My parents couldn’t find the phone, or something. The only thing I clearly remember is my dad opening his door looking and me and it hitting me. I raced at him and he scooped me up as I sobbed “I knew it! I knew it!” My grandfather had died. My Popi Tony. The man who had come to America alone at the age of 26 to make a new life for himself. The man who had raised my father and aunt, working as a bricklayer and pizza parlor owner. The man who improved his English skills by helping his children with their homework. He was gone. Forever.
I had known it was coming. My dad had warned my sister and I at Christmas. That time was a happy time. I came home from school one day, probably the last day of school before winter break, to my Nani, Popi and Aunt Maria sitting on the couch and talking with my parents like they had been there for ages. I was SO excited. I had missed them so much since we had moved to California. But my grandfather was very thin and very weak. I think I knew in the back of my mind that something was very wrong, but I was only 7 and really didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. I have a vague memory of my dad leaving in September that year to go on a trip with his dad. I found out later that they had traveled to Italy and Brazil so that my grandfather could say goodbye to his family. I can’t even begin to imagine who painful that must have been for my dad and the rest of my family. My grandfather was the one who traveled back to Italy as often as he could and has just as many memories with our family there as he does here.
There’s a picture that I have, unfortunately not in my possession (it’s in my room at my parents’ house) of my grandfather that last Christmas Eve. It’s by no means a flattering picture, but it’s one I stare at all the time when I have it near me. He’s eating his spaghetti and is looking at the camera as if he was caught off-guard by the person taking the picture. His sweater is brown, over a white checkered collared shirt and both seem too big for him. His forehead is scrunched and what was left of his eyebrows are raised and his eyes, underneath his glasses, are wide. There’s barely a wisp of white hair left on his head that is spotted with liver spots, probably because of the cancer treatments he had been going through. He’s surprised. That image is seared into my memory. I’m sure we have happier looking pictures from that Christmas. I know we do. But that one is one that I kept. My dad buzzed his head over the summer last year and had lost some weight and I got the shock of my life when I Skyped with him and my mom. I was at our family’s house in Italy and hadn’t seen them in person since May. I know he did it because my dad is practical and figured that the shorter he cut his hair, the longer he could wait between cuts (he’s frugal and I love him for it). But he scared the crap out of me. He looked too much like his father in that picture. I mean, I know he is healthy and not nearly as thin, but God, he looked too much like him.
I cried that night. I cried for the memory of my grandfather, the man that I wish I could have known more, the man who tried to teach me his native language when I was learning to talk, the man who watched me with my grandmother every week when my parents were at work. I was his first grandchild and he loved me. I loved him. I still do and I think about him every day. I wonder at my actions and what he would think of me today. I hope I’m making him proud. I really do.
Somehow and at some point, my family landed in New York at the end of February. There was still snow on the ground; a lot of it. I remember my Uncle Stephen, my mother's brother, took my sister and I out to the front lawn of my mom’s parents’s house, with whom we were staying because of all the commotion at my dad’s family’s house, and we made a snowman that was lying on its back. I don’t remember why, but I remember laughing. We made its legs by packing a bucket full of snow and placing it on him. Well, my uncle probably did. My sister was all bundled up with just her little, round like a cherub face and red from the cold, peeking out from her scarf and hat and snow suit. She was so sweet and didn’t understand really what was happening. I talk to her about it now and she has a few sharp memories of these days, but her biggest memory is the lack of one. She was so little when we moved that she never got to know him. I wish you had, baby girl. He was wonderful.
I remember going to the wake. There were so many people and so many flowers. To this day, I can not get a whiff of flowers without having a flashback to that day and that scene. I don’t talk about it much though. There were balloons saying “Loving Husband” and “Wonderful Father.” My grandmother was crying as people consoled her. And I remember this. I wanted to see him, one last time, so I walked straight up to the casket with my sister and stared down at my grandfather. I thought he looked funny. He was skinnier than I had remembered (even at Christmas, he still had a little belly) but it was gone. He had makeup on, from the funeral home mortician, and a suit. I had never seen him in a suit.
Then I did something that my mom told me later that kind of shocked her. I reached out and held his hand and touched his arm and his face. It seemed the right thing to do, but he was cold. The Popi Tony I remember was always warm and smiling and laughing, eyes alive with merriment. Sitting at his kitchen table (which is still in my grandmother’s kitchen; I can’t bring myself to sit at the head of the table where he would always sit) with pants belted around his middle with a plain white undershirt on and slippers. It seemed to be his uniform. Occasionally he’d throw a cardigan on, usually navy blue or green it seemed.
My sister and I didn’t go to the funeral. We were dropped off at my mom’s sister’s place to play with our cousins. Rebecca and Rachel didn’t quite understand what was going on or why were sad. My aunt said something about our grandfather passing and that scared my cousin’s into thinking it was our shared grandfather (who is still alive and kicking, if I might say so). Somehow and at some point, we flew back to California to try and resume our normal lives. I was strange for a while. I didn’t feel like socializing at school and was always looking in the clouds for a sign of him. At night, if I had done something “bad” during the day, I would lie flat on my back with my blanket tucked around me for fear of him coming down from Heaven and smacking my bottom. I had heard stories of my dad getting the belt and I was terrified. I laugh at it now, but it was a real fear for me.
I also wondered, and still do, if we had stayed in New York, would he have lived longer? We were his family. My aunt didn’t marry until after he passed, so when my family moved to California, it was just the three of them. They say you can die of a broken heart. I know I shouldn’t think like this, but I wonder if he sort of gave up fighting, because we were so far away now. I hope he didn’t. Again, time machines would really come in handy for me sometimes.
I miss him. I miss him so much. I think about him every day and wonder what he would think of our lives. Me, on my own up here, working in San Francisco and having spent a summer in his home country. My sister at school in North Carolina, finding herself in the crazy world of college. My aunt married and raising her son in Brooklyn and my grandmother, still living in the house they shared on Long Island. I wish I could talk to him again, see him again. I’ve nearly forgotten what he sounds like and definitely what he smells like. Next time I’m home, I’m making copies of home videos so I can have them for myself.
RIP Antonio Bifulco April 21, 1932 to February 26, 1996. Ti amo e mi manchivi molto.
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