MY NONON, A TYPICAL ITALIAN GREAT-GRANDMOTHER!

Maria Rosa Mastroianni

This is my great-grandmother, Nonon, circa mid-1950s. She was my grandfather's mother (thus, my mother's grandmother) and lived with her son and  his family from the day my grandparents got married. That was just the way they did things in those days. She helped a lot with the kids, who totaled eleven when all was said and done, but I don't think she was too crazy about her great-grandchildren.

When my dear friend John LaRose saw this picture on facebook, he said "I wouldn't mess with this woman." I was amazed that he picked up on it so quickly, but he's right. She ruled with an iron fist...and a sewing needle!

We were a gang of cousins, close in age and rambunctious (as children can be) so whenever she had enough of us, she'd stick us with her omnipresent sewing needle (she was always sewing something) and that slowed us down good. Her nickname became 'Pinch Grandma' because of that.

She was also fiercely independent, extremely old-school Italian, never liked it here in 'Amer-i-cah' and refused to ever learn English even though she lived to the ripe old age of 88. But BOY, did she know how to get around both New York City AND upstate New York, where she had 'paisans.'

One time, Grandpa bought a radio for the whole family to enjoy. She was absolutely livid with her son for "wasting money" and took off for an entire week, never letting anyone know where she was until she decided to return from Syracuse, NY!

She was also very mysterious. I have researched the Ellis Island records top to bottom, inside out, multiple times and I cannot find a trace of her or her son (still a boy at the time) who arrived here around 1900. When I checked the 1930 census, every single member of the family was listed EXCEPT you-know-who. I guess she just didn't trust the government knowing anything that was 'none of their beeza-neese.'

She outlived both her son and daughter-in-law, and passed away in 1958.

As John LaRose said, I'm sure, wherever she may be, ain't nobody messing with this woman!

PICKING UP THE PIECES...

...and carrying on.

I had a heart once. A heart of such pure, unadulterated gold, it would have saved Neil Young an awful lot of time and trouble in his famous search.

But gold is a cold, hard metal. As is platinum. So I think any comparisons of my former heart would have to be made against the softest objects ~ objects that have the texture of marshmallows or pink summer clouds.

Now, this is not to say that I don't still have this very same heart. Oh no, it may have been shattered into millions of pieces over the course of one lifetime, but nobody escaped with even one shard of the heart they all helped to break. No souvenirs, not for the evil ones. Not for anyone, really. Not anymore. It's way too fragile and vulnerable to ever be exposed again to none but the most trusted (and tested) of people.

My former heart, tattered and in so many pieces, is now safely ensconced into the cocoon that has slowly, through the years, formed inside my chest, in the place where the heart is commonly thought to reside. Only I know its exact location for, if it is to survive, it must be resolutely protected until the body in which it lives departs for a better place, where we can both become whole again, without fear, without pain, without yet another soul-shattering, gut-wrenching betrayal of love and trust.

I feel kind of bad, even guilty, about the cocoon because it does not allow newcomers, or anyone really, to know the real me inside. That's the price one has to pay for finally putting your own self ahead of everybody else. Your own feelings, your own protective shell, that elusive thing that I could never quite find in this world, leaving me open and terribly vulnerable to the cruelties of both life and certain individuals who could not care less what terrible hurt they so cavalierly inflicted, or on whom.

But getting back to the cocoon, it's approximately the same size and thickness of a coconut shell, and twice, maybe three times as hard to crack. It also does not suffer fools gladly, allows no one two strikes, and has managed to protect its precious cargo as a tigress protects her own cubs.

Someone very dear to me actually used that as a comparison when our souls were still touching and entwined. "You remind me of a tigress, the most solitary creature in the world. Except when she has cubs. The she is also the most dangerous..."

I like that description; I like it a lot. Only someone who truly knows, and sees into the deepest parts of every secret of the soul ~ visible to his eyes only ~ would understand the crushing necessity of why a person sometimes has to be a solitary creature.

As for my heart and all those deep, cloven-hooved and hideous scars left behind by the countless stomping of different people's own peculiar black boots...some wounds have healed, soothing and reassuring to be sure, but still, so much damage can never completely heal. Thus, gently wrapped inside a pastel-colored blanket for safekeeping, all tucked safely within that coconut, lined with ultra-durable bubble wrap so not even the hardest blow can possibly hurt it again, in any way.

It is beyond reach...on bad days, it is also beyond my own reach, which is not good. But, again, that is the price one must pay for its safety. My heart and I have no options left. Neither one of us can allow another injury or we will both die. But maybe, just maybe, we will both wind up in a soft place of marshmallows and pink summer clouds.

Wouldn't that be the final and most perfect of poetic justice, though?

And on my tombstone would be:

HERE LIES PAULA

SHE HAD TO CROAK TO FINALLY BE HAPPY

Hahahahaaaa!!! Didn't end so badly now, did it?

With a nod and a wink!