Dear G.,
I don’t remember the last words I heard you say. I only remember half a smile, from inside a taxi, in the pouring rain. You had it stop by my office and rolled down the window just enough for me to slip in what I had to give you. No words. You waved your hand goodbye. I stood there and waved back, under my umbrella. And off you went to catch your train back home.
In the ICU, we took turns. Two visitors maximum, they said. We were always more than two waiting to see you; you were loved. One day, we brought you drawings from your little nephew and left them there, on your bed. Draw something for Nonna, we asked him, and he did right away, without hesitation. He got down on a blank sheet of paper and drew you and himself holding one of those bags of chips you used to buy him, I forget what they’re called. The bag was open and chips were flying out into his mouth, magically. You loved to spoil him, I know you had a thing for him. I can picture you nodding your head at this. And smiling that little guilty smile of yours that you’d flash when you admitted a weakness, accompanied by a subtle shrug.
I wonder whether you knew we came every day, or felt anything at all. I read somewhere that people in a coma feel things, that they should be talked to, and that talking to them may even help with the awakening. We would come in, wearing a sort of mandatory honey bee suit, and at some point your daughter would ask me to leave, as she wanted to be alone with you and talk. You two had a heated argument the day I last saw you in the taxi. The last time the two of you talked. This haunts her to this day. I didn’t know until she told me you were not well and had a high fever. Go see her, I urged. Take the first train, the kids will be fine with me. She looked down and murmured that you two had a fight and were mad at each other. She loved you more than life, and did take the first train. But you were already in the hospital. Sedated, unconscious. Pride is such a damaging emotion.
In-laws can be a touchy subject. In our collective imagination, they’re often seen as intrusive, overly protective of their daughters/sons, know-it-all, sometimes anxious, and weirdly competitive when grandchildren come into the picture. For many, they’re a source of stress and interference. For me, you were a source of relief, tranquility, and positivity. A force of nature. Always there. Yet, always invisible.
Remember that time we were still engaged and she wanted to take some time away from me to think? Or maybe it was when we had that quarrel and did not speak for a while. Anyway, whatever it was, we were kind of distant. Remember that, one day, out of the blue and unbeknownst to her, you called me on the phone and told me, all in one breath (so I couldn’t interrupt, argue, or hang up), that I should hurry and take the first step, if I thought she was important to me? You said that time would pass and things wouldn’t fix themselves, and that pride has never done anyone any good. I’ve never thought you were intrusive; it never crossed my mind. You genuinely liked me, and liked us together. You always treated me like a son, and taught me a lesson I will never forget. A lesson in introspection and courage and pragmatism.
Those days you were in the ICU, I was astonished at the overwhelming amount of love from anyone who came to visit you. In that waiting room, stories were told and photos shown and tears shed. You were away, I don’t know where, and time was suspended. Our realities were waiting for a green light to move on, like cars at an intersection. Some days, when the doctors said you were stationary, hope and optimism prevailed. Our eyes were glued to numbers blinking on a screen, their direction driving our emotions. Your friend M. brought a photo from a summer vacation she and her husband took with you, years back. It was at some beach place, you were waiting for a boat, on the dock, laughing and gesticulating. The motion of your hands made them appear blurred. You looked very tanned in your white dress.
Who knows what happens the instant we pass. Whether we have any realization of what’s going on, of what’s about to occur. The awareness of death, it might be called. I wish you could respond to this letter and tell me. Were you aware of the end? Did you notice anything? Did you really start a journey somewhere, down a white path, toward a bright light, as people who went almost all the way but got pulled back to life say? Would that be something that actually happens, or just a dream? And does one have any thoughts, that very moment? Like So, that’s what death’s about. When Dad passed, in the moments before he took his last breath, he opened his eyes wide and flashed a huge smile, as if he were seeing something nice, or someone whose unexpected presence made him happy.
When your daughter’s call arrived, it was mid-morning and I was at work. Mom is gone, she said. I went to the kids’ school, got them out, sat them both in the car, and said Nonna didn’t make it. They had their first confrontation with the idea of death, right there. With the notion that someone may cease to exist. Of course I said that your soul flew up to heaven and will live there forever. That in a couple of days we’d bury your body, but that’s just a container. It’s not important. When it happened to me, I was eight and I don’t remember whether or not I bought the soul thing -- all I knew was that grandpa was lying on his bed with his eyes closed, and he’d never open them again.
I wish you could see them now, your grandkids. E. is twenty, and L. sixteen, and you still come up a lot in conversations. They miss you. We all do. The other day, I was in the car with E. and told her that Substack, the place where I publish my pieces, launched a writing contest -- Write a paragraph-long letter to someone from your past, they instructed. Who would you write that letter to?, I asked her. To Nonna, she responded. Without even thinking. I went ahead and wrote another letter, to someone fictitious, that could fit in a paragraph and I could submit as requested. This one I left for later.
One of the things I remember more vividly from those days is your daughter putting L.’s drawing of you and him and the flying chips in the casket. A simple gesture that I loved, but it gave me pause, as I probably would have kept the drawing. She also included a letter to you that, out of respect, I didn’t ask to read.
So I wrote you mine.
"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.
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Oh my! ❤️❤️❤️
This was simply beautiful Silvio, loved how you slowly unravel everything and say so, so much. It made me have a knot up my throat and stir so many memories. Again, simply beautiful, hope there's many of this unsent letters to come.