An Age-Old Ritual
I pull into an open space in the packed driveway, the cracked pavement and its faded lines making it difficult to tell if I’m actually in a parking spot or not. As I shut the door to the car and look up to my left, my grandmother — Nana to me — is standing on the back porch of her apartment building, enjoying a nice New England fall day.
“Mario” she calls out in an ages-old Italian accent, her smile so wide it blends into the wrinkles on her 87-year old face.
“Nana!” I shout back as I begin walking up the cracked concrete staircase toward her perch.
Arriving at the top step, I greet her with a customary kiss on the forehead, a ritual I’ve repeated more times than I can count in my lifetime.
“Come stai?” I ask her as I open the back door to the building and we head inside to her apartment, the same unit she’s lived in since emigrating to the United States in 1966.
Despite being an octogenarian, Nana still lives alone, evidence of an independence and stubbornness that emanates from the old country.
