Flipping through the colorful pages
of my passport, imagining a smattering of inky stamps in place of the empty
spaces before me, I could almost picture one particular word pressed boldly on
the first clean page of the little blue book in my hand–Italy. The boot shaped peninsula of a country has been a magical
place in my mind for so many years I can't remember a time that it wasn't.
Nearly seven years ago to date, I can remember myself in this same position,
holding this same little book in one hand and a crisp new twenty Euro bill that
my grandmother had just shoved in the other, so I could spend on my first
venture to Italy. I was about a month away from going on that long awaited
journey, when I decided to visit my family in Massachusetts the weekend of my
twenty-sixth birthday. While my parents were at work and I was home with my
grandmother, she experienced a severe stroke that I had failed to identify in
the signs until it was too late to make a difference. After watching her slowly
fade away in a hospital over the course of a month, she eventually died of starvation
because her body didn't know how to breakdown and digest food anymore. Just
like that, the woman who was as much a mother to me as the mother who gave
birth to me was gone from my life forever. Italy was the last thing on my mind
that summer. I just took that twenty Euro bill, neatly folded it in half and
pressed it between the empty pages of my passport where it has remained for the
last seven years.
This weekend I drove home to spend a
few days with my parents before attempting another turn at visiting Italy this
Friday. I never like to leave for a long trip without a fresh image of my
smiling loved ones imprinted in my mind to take with me for the road. As I
drove past the Massachusetts state line, mere hours after the marathon bomber
had been caught in the neighboring city of Watertown, I noticed high definition
electric billboards ablaze along the highway and posters declaring "Boston
Strong" hanging on overpasses like crumbs on a trail to guide my way home.
In the wake of the events that have happened in Boston this past week, it seems
that it has triggered sympathy pains in me and my mind has been taking me back
to the pain I felt with the loss of my grandmother. Since her passing I've
relived the events of that day over and over in my mind so many times since
then, but every time, the pain is just as much there, as it was the day it
happened. I wonder...how will these families ever be able to file those
gruesome moments away in a healthy place and not let it clutter the spaces of
their lives for the rest of time. It would, indeed, have to take a strong
person and a strong city to keep moving forward in the same way. People from
all walks of life and throughout all of human history have experienced some
form of tragedy at one time or another, but I suppose it's a matter of not
letting these horrors repeat themselves and learning from them that we can
soften these blows and those that are bound to come creeping up on us in the
future.
Through my own tragedy, I've learned
a few things that have put my life into perspective. Since I lost my
grandmother, I've learned to spend more time with my family, show them every
time that I see them that I love them dearly. I've learned to hug my friends
more, when I see they need one or just because I want them to know that I'm
grateful for having them in my life. I try harder to do what I say I will do
and keep all the promises that I make. I've taken the time to appreciate what I
have, let go of the things that I don't necessarily need and look for even the
tiniest grain of hope, inspiration or optimism in every hurt, wrong turn and
pitfall along my journey. In the words that I've written throughout this year,
my hope is–if anything else–to touch someone's life in a positive way, even if
it's only a single person. If I can or have done that already, I call my life a
success. With one month left of my thirty-second year I've decided to finally
make that trip to Italy that for so long I've wished to take. I'll visit that
ancient Coliseum in Rome, toast a glass of wine under the Tuscan sun, lap up a
gelato while fighting off seagulls at Venice's Piazza San Marco, and finally
spend that twenty Euro bill I've saved in my passport all these years in my
grandmother's name. Then, when I've had my fill of Roman men, (if that can even
be possible) I'll jump over to Greece to set my sights on the Parthenon and
learn where the civilized world grew its roots. And, at the end, to top it all
off, I will fly back to my brave homeland of the United States of America, give
my chubby cat Gizmo and good friend Dina a big hug and jump on another plane to
spend the last days of my thirty-second year with my fabulous friends who
joined me in New Orleans earlier this year. Together we will celebrate and soak
up some sun on the beaches of Fort Lauderdale and Miami. And if God wills me to
live another day, year, decade...if I survive this thirty-second year of my
life...to my mother and father's arms I will go to rejoice and spend the first
day of my thirty-third year. All I have to do now is wait patiently to board
that plane bound for Roma on Friday and pray that no tragedy falls on me
until then.
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