October 8, 2024–Very heavy intermittent downpours/rain today. It seemed to be coming down in waves, from downpour, to drizzle, to cloudy, to downpour,….We got soaked, even with umbrellas! But, hey, the weather was not cold, really, it was another soaking bath! We met my cousin Nadia Moscardini in Barga (where she lives—on a mountain across from the one we’re on). Nadia is my Aunt Anna Moscardini’s daughter, Dannie DeBacker’s sister. Anna is nonna’s sister! Nadia and I haven’t seen nor spoken with each other since 1968. Nevertheless, we immediately knew each other when we saw each other in a coffee shop, and we carried on as if there had been no distance between us all this time! This was the first time that Dad had met Nadia. What a great, warm, familial feeling! Family blood connection literally warms the heart, and our hugs FELT that connection! In spite of the rain, Nadia drove us up the curly-queues of the mountain from Barga to Tiglio, where nonna was born and where our ancestors from nonna’s side were born (most of them), lived, and passed away (most of them). The only time I really left our town of Coreglia on the opposite mountain was with my parents and mostly when nonna and I walked down our mountain, across a river, and up the opposite mountain to visit nonna’s parents. My grandparents’ house/vineyard/church were familiar to me when I was a small child. At the time, there were no roads for car/bus/truck traffic. Things have changed from how I had remembered them, but the house exterior had not. I just had never really noticed that the house had three stories, nor had I realized how steep the climb was from the piazza to the house, how steep the descent was, and how unevenly paved the walkways to and from the house were! Adjacent to that house is another, and that is where nonno’s parents lived for a short while. Today, a strange man came out to greet Nadia and us, offered to let us walk through the house, but it was so rainy, that we did not want to pause. It’s OK, I remembered only the kitchen and their fancy outhouse-type-toilet. I never liked sleeping away from my own house, so I had no real recollection of how the bedroom looked or where it was. A young woman stepped out to greet us from the house next door, too. It turns out that the woman was the man’s daughter, living in houses side by side. I assume the house that nonna grew up in had been sold to that man. We walked up, down, and all around, steep steps and slippery cobblestone to another nearby part of this small town to view another smaller house that nonna’s parents owned and that was inhabited by nonno’s parents as their last residence in Tiglio (I think it was the last residence in Tiglio, but they did live there). I don’t know how my 90+-year-old grandparents navigated the steep and uneven steps/terrain if they wished to leave their property! A car cannot drive to the house. Walking would be absolutely required! Wheelchairs could not have done it, either. I just think that people here in Tiglio/Italy, more generally, are in much better shape than I. My cousin Nadia was just racing from one place to the next without huffing, puffing, nor pausing to catch her breath. She got wet, but the terrain did not seem to be an issue whatsoever! From there, we met the neighbor of the house where nonna’s fiancé lived before he went missing from WW II and before meeting nonno.. The fiancé’s name was Franco, and this neighbor-man had been named after him. Franco-the-fiancé’s parents asked the neighbors to please name their newborn boy Franco in honor of their son who had gone missing and presumed dead. Nadia then drove to Tiglio Alto (there is a low and a high Tiglio). Tiglio Alto is where the Church of San Giusto is as well as the Cemetery for Tiglio residents/parishioners. We could not enter the little Church because the priest had died and now one priest shares his time among several different parishes in the area. He was not there to unlock the Church. I had seen it in the past, but I would have liked to have seen the plaque on one of the doors stating that my great-grandparents, nonnna’s parents, had donated that door to the Church. This is the Church where Tiglio residents were baptized, received their Sacraments, and from which they were buried. The cemetery behind the Church is where our ancestors who died in Tiglio are buried, including my grandparents on both sides and my Aunt Anna who died in 2022. Just below the graveyard, the white house was once my great-uncle’s/great-aunt’s/cousin-once-removed’s house (nonna’s uncle Giocondo, aunt Iolanda, and cousin Ada). I hadn’t realized that their house was literallly just below the Church in Tiglio Alto! This was an emotional/beautiful day for us/me, even though the heavy rain had tried to scare us—but it did not succeed! There were only a few minutes between the time we said good-bye to Nadia in Barga and when Marco and Santa Tomei arrived to greet us. Marco is nonna’s cousin’s son, and that would make him maybe my second cousin once removed. Santa is his wife, so she’s related to me the same way by law, I think. Marco’s grandfather was nonna’s uncle, her mother’s brother. Marco’s brother was Luca, of whom I was thinking when I suggested to Erika that perhaps that could be a good L name for her second son. Luca was not there because he was deceased. Dad and I had never met Paolo and Santa, but that’s OK because we’re family, anyhow, and the friendship immediately began to take shape. We rode with them to Albiano, a nearby small town with a phenomenal Mountain View of Barga from on high, and we dined at Albergo Ristorante La Terrazza, a very nice place for delicious home-made food! We basically had the restaurant to ourselves, so there was no rush for seating or time. Francesco (Marco and Santa’s son) and his wife Bucu (pronounced Bee-r-zhoo), and their 15-month old daughter, Dora met us for this meal. Francesco is a drama and art freelancer, and Bucu is an architect. Dora is just adorable! Francesco speaks English well, Santa has been an elementary school teach in Coreglia for 35 years (she knew my teacher, Signore Bice, from my time in Coreglia) and understands English a bit, and Marco speaks English a good bit, so Dad could understand and have some conversation, too. This, too, was an extraordinary experience for us, connecting and perpetuating our family ties. What an emotionally exciting day for me, and I hope it was for Dad, in his own, perhaps different-than-my, way as well.
Our Travels 