Reporting from Italy: I Forgot the Ashes

I forgot to bring Mom and Daddy's ashes to Europe with me.

I suppose the good news is I remembered all the essentials and all the essentials, especially in light of a one month stay, fit into one checked underweight bag but I almost fell down when I realized I forgot to put the ashes into my carry on.  

More good news would be that I will be back another 3 times next year and then, will probably have John or Jimmy with me so I'll not only have more opportunities in the relatively near future but I'll also have the added emotional enhancement of having someone Mom loved and adored with me to share the experience.

On all trips to Italy, I end up seeing at least one guy who looks just like Daddy and this trip was no exception.  My host here, a tiny feisty Italian beauty, was born and raised in Piacenza and knows not only seemingly every single one of its inhabitants but also every nook and cranny of its many small and winding roads.  I told her I needed to find a walking trail that was away from the city center, hopefully where there were wide open spaces and hopefully pretty scenery and hopefully distances such that I could walk for a good 2 hours without having to triple and quadruple back in order to get the miles.  

There's a river about 1.5 miles away and there's a river trail that's about 2-1/2 miles long, so everyday that I've been in Piacenza I've walked to the river trail, walked an out and back on it, then walked back to my apartment and I think all that adds up to about 8 miles a day of fast walking.  

I've been here for the change in weather, from summer to fall, and the super hot still days of early in my trip have given way to cool mornings and evenings, some fantastically violent storms, a few days of steady rain.  

On the trail two days in a row, when it was cooler and a little drizzly, I saw Daddy.  

About a 70 year old Daddy.

And he was riding a bike.

And he was wearing his denim jacket.

And he even smelled just like I remember.

I saw him coming and was able to fully appreciate his approach and when he pedaled past, I turned to watch him ride away from me, smiling and feeling more strongly connected.

Also this trip, I had dinner with Pete Paisley.

Pete Paisley was my Mom's very favorite "nephew" and not only was Pete just about as outrageous as they come, he was a dear and gentle soul, full of life and love and exhuberance and, not surprisingly, the current Pete Paisley was my neigbor as I lived for the past month in an apartment in a 400 year old palace, still owned by the matriarchal family of record, and inhabited mostly by family members.  Pete, the real Pete, was not only one of Mom and Daddy's most treasured family members he also served Mom and Daddy like a good neighbor, helping with various home remodeling projects and odd jobs around Mom and Daddy's house.  

The stories of these various home remodeling projects and odd jobs are the stuff of legend in our family.  Suffice to say that Mom and her mother, Cora, were difficult, unpredictable and demanding and poor Petie paid the price by moving walls, then putting them back up again only to move them again.  

During dining room round tables, when stories would be told and retold and we'd all laugh until we cried, Mom would blame her mother for all the confusion and now, with both Mom and her mother  dead, in fact, with all of them dead, I'm able to spread the blame equally around among them all .  

So my Pete Paisely is named Carlo and he used to live in my tiny apartment until about a year ago when he moved next door into a very large 2 story flat.  When my hot water, refridgerator and various other necessities didn't work, the palace owner told me to call Carlo for help.

Carlo solved all my problems when I first moved in and when, over 2 weeks later I had a break in my work schedule and had some free nights, I slipped a note under his door asking if he wanted to go to dinner.  I left my email address on the note and that day, I got an email saying that he'd love to go to dinner, any night for would be fine for his schedule but that he was the man and I am the woman and he would need to ask me.  

I told him that it was too late for that, I'd already asked him, but he insisted that we erase time and go back so that it would be his idea.  What IS IT with these Italian men?

So, Carlo who looks exactly like Pete and is exactly the kind of neighbor/helper/friend that Pete was to Mom and Dad, and I went to dinner 2 nights.  

In an email giving me an idea of what to expect for our first night out, he told me not to eat anything all day long, that he was taking me to a place where the quality and quantity of food served is unlike anything he's ever seen in all of Italy.  

Suffice to say that it was an experience like none other for me, the place was packed with young Italians and they were being served the most massive quantities of pasta I've ever seen.  Easily, a pound of pasta on their plates.  And they were eating every last bite.

And the "chef" would routinely come into the dining room and bellow "where the wrestler?" or "where's the skiier?" and the wrestler and the skier would identify themselves, and a brief conversation would ensue which had to do with the wrestler and skier acknowledging that they'd received even more gargantuan portions than the rest of us, and then the "chef" would disappear back into the kitchen to make more kilos of pasta. 

Everyone got tiny glasses of grappa and lemoncello after dinner, nobody spoke English and, all in all, it was just about the most fun night of my trip.  But the food was awful.  There was a ton of it but it was awful.  I only ate a teeny bit, just enough to be polite.

Yesterday, on my last river trail hike, I saw both Mom and Daddy.  They were tiny white butterflies, dancing with each other right out in front of me for about 10 feet, and when I passed them, I turned around and started walking backward so I could watch them for a bit longer, and they'd separated, with the Daddy butterfly waundering off down the slope of the trail toward the river but with the Mom butterfly perching on a weed and flapping her wings at me as if to say "HI BECKY HI HI HI HI!"  

I laughed out loud, turned back around and kept on going.

Because that is, after all, what we all have to do.

I fly home tomorrow, am taking a cab the 90 minutes from Piacenza to Malpensa, the airport outside Milano, I leave at 4 am, my flight's at 7, Lord willing I'll be in Seattle by noon PST.  

It's been a fantastic adventure, a good preview of what it will be like for me to be on the road for 2 months next year when I'll go all the way around the world, but I must admit, I'm ready for the American convenience of living, the comforts I've becomed accustomed to but can easily do without for extended periods, and for the soulful connection to my friends and family in Seattle that are actually still alive.

Life is good, it's for the living and although I see the past in my present, it feels good, it makes me happier than not and I'm glad to feel and believe and trust that Mom and Daddy are dancing together on the soft breezes of fall as it comes to northern Italy.

Ciao bella, I will be in touch again soon.

Love and Prayers from Here to There.