It [history] enables an older generation to pass its literacy resources onto another

     After immigrating to the United States from Italy when she was just sixteen, my grandmother’s life has been nothing short of extraordinary. To me, the most beautiful story out of all that encompasses her journey is the love story between her and my grandfather, who was also Italian. On December 17th, 2016, I came across a treasure that painted this love story for me through the eyes of my grandfather, John.

     The air outside was cold, blowing a winter wind through the streets decorated with Christmas lights and waving snowmen. On the contrary, the air inside my grandmother’s home was warm, filled with the scent of peppermint hot chocolate and the sound of Michael Buble’s Christmas album. I found myself upstairs going through one of her old and distressed white dressers, unsure of what I was hoping to find. As I pulled open each of the worn down and squeaky dresser drawers, I found miscellaneous photographs, blankets, and rag dolls. After looking around in the last drawer, my hands came across a gem in the sea of pebbles. I pulled out an old, white book entitled “Our Wedding Book”. In awe, I sat down and opened the book of love. My eyes wandered over the pages filled with guest signatures, wedding planning, and my mother’s doodling from when she was a kid. I then came across a page labeled “How We Met” in script cursive.

     “I was introduced to Virginia in April of 1958. I was very impressed by her foreign ways. You see, she had just came from Fara San Martino, Italy, just 18 months before,” my grandfather wrote. His handwriting was so beautiful and mesmerizing, as if a computer had printed cursive itself. I read on as my grandfather explained how the two had dated that summer, but stopped seeing each other in October. “I felt like I had lost something very important to me. Days, weeks, months, and even years passed. I thought of her often,” I read. Tears began to blur my vision, making the cursive appear as scribbles on a withered page. I had always been intrigued by love stories, but could not believe I was reading a first-hand account of one. Wondering what was going to happen next, I read on as my grandfather wrote about their lives crossing paths again at the Seattle World’s fair in July of 1962. “Virginia was wearing a bright red coat. She always looked so pretty in red,” the cursive read. The romantic words written by my grandfather painted an image so vivid in my mind that I could picture the two of them in a black and white filter on the streets of Seattle, with the exception of my grandmother’s bright red coat, of course. After meeting again that summer, it was not until January of 1963 that my grandfather decided to call my grandma at work. “I went to see her that night and every night until we were engaged April 30th, 1963,” he wrote.

     Although my grandfather had passed away in 2001, I could picture him smiling as he wrote about my grandmother’s beauty and the happiness they shared together. I could feel him urging me to read more of a literary piece I had never encountered before. I could hear his voice in my head, reading the story as one does to a child, although this particular one was written through the generation of his ocean blue eyes. It was no coincidence that I had come across this white leather book in the back of my grandmother’s white wood dresser one December day. Being only one year old when my grandfather passed away, I wasn’t able to know all that he was, and now I feel like I know possibly the most beautiful and vulnerable side of him. Just as I was about to close the book and place it back in it’s hiding spot, I smile and dry my eyes as I read his last words, “I think she was glad I called. What do you think?” signed, John Carpinito.