Over the Rainbow
by Cathy Fiorello
“Now remember,” my mother said as my older sister Eleanor and I were leaving for school that morning. “Don’t come home today, go straight to Grandma’s. I’ll be there.” I didn’t know then, but that was the beginning of the end of my grandmother’s life.
She was old, yes, but she had always been old to me. I never could imagine my grandmother as a young woman. There were no pictures of her early years. For the entire time I knew her, she had dressed all in black, mourning her husband’s death until her own. He died of the Spanish Influenza long before I was born. She had five daughters and two sons and could have lived with any of them, but she chose to live alone in the home she had shared with her husband. That home was a flat on the second floor of a rundown building in a Depression-poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, two blocks from where my family lived.
As soon as I was old enough, I had “Grandma duties.” I was dispatched to her flat once a week to see if she needed anything. I hated that the flat was always shivering cold in winter. There were no hissing radiators, like at home, just a coal-burning stove in her kitchen that we gathered around to keep warm. I hated that I had to climb a creaky staircase to the third floor to use a bathroom that was shared with the other tenants. Its one grimy window rattled in the wind; the lock on the door was broken. I didn’t want to be there, but it was a time when children did as we were told. When my mother said, “Go to Grandma’s and see if she needs anything,” I winced, but I went.
My mother and her sisters were always concerned that their mother would run out of food. One of my responsibilities was to replenish her supplies. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Conversation with Grandma was difficult. Though she had lived more of her life in America than in Italy, she had never learned to speak English. Growing impatient with me because I didn’t understand Italian, she would use props to tell me what she needed. “Burra, burra,” she’d say, pointing to the empty butter dish. Holding up the stale remains of a loaf of bread, she’d say, “Pane, pane,” until I nodded, indicating that I understood. Then she’d put some coins in my hand and wrap my fingers tightly around them, telling me in a gesture I understood, “Don’t lose the money!” Wearing a too-big, too-brown coat bought originally for Eleanor who was plump and looked good in brown, I walked to the Italian bread store on the corner, opened my fist, and let the coins pour out onto the counter. There were just enough to pay for the loaf Grandma wanted.
As much as I hated Grandma’s flat, I loved the bakery. I loved that it was warm and safe there. Its windows, misted over with indoor heat, blocked the harsh outdoors. I loved the tantalizing aroma of yeast at work in the oven that made my stomach rumble with longing. I bought what seemed to me an enormous round of warm, coarsely-crusted bread and carried it home to Grandma. One of my most vivid memories of her is the way she sliced that loaf. Resting it on her left hip and holding it there firmly, she cut generous slices using a knife that looked like a dagger to my young eyes. One of those slices, slathered with butter that melted into its warmth, was for me.
One of our Sunday afternoon excursions was to St. John’s Cemetery to say a prayer at Grandpa’s grave. First, we’d pick up Grandma. After we were all settled in the car—Eleanor up front with my father, I tucked tightly between my mother and grandmother—we headed for the Long Island Expressway which would take us to the cemetery. Eleanor and my father talked and laughed, enjoying the ride; my mother and her mother engaged in lively Italian conversation. I sat, squished and carsick, fighting the waves of nausea that washed over me. When we arrived at St. John’s, Eleanor and I would race between the rows of graves to see who would find Grandpa’s first. His picture, in a sepia-tinged black and white photo framed in a weather-beaten oval, was on his headstone. His hair was all white, but his mustache, extending beyond both corners of his unsmiling mouth, was black. If we’d brought flowers, which we always did on his birthday and at Easter, my father would clear the gravesite of debris while Eleanor and I went to the pump to fill a container of water for the new plantings. Then we knelt in the grass and everyone whispered prayers for Grandpa’s soul. Except Grandma—she just stood there talking out loud to him in Italian, gesturing and shaking her head as if he were right there before her. Though Eleanor and I had never met him, our grandfather was very much a part of our young lives.
When we got to my grandmother’s house after school that day, my mother met us at the door, a finger at her lips, telling us to hush so we wouldn’t disturb Grandma. She led us to the spare room and told us to do our homework quietly. My mother spent the rest of the afternoon tending to her mother. Eleanor and I didn’t know what was happening, but we knew it wasn’t good. We knew the joy of life beginning as new babies were born into our family, but we were shielded from the grim realities at life’s end.
With our homework done and hours to go before we would be home, we did our best to entertain ourselves. At our Friday night movie that week, we had seen “The Wizard of Oz” and were entranced with Judy Garland as a girl our age living this magical adventure. We couldn’t get the music out of our heads. We used it to veil the occasional moan that came from Grandma’s room, singing “Over the Rainbow” again and again, losing ourselves in the promise of “a place where the dreams that you dared to dream really do come true.” Forgetting where we were and why we were there, we raised our voices as we felt the song more deeply, which brought my mother back to hush us again.
Grandma died a few weeks after Eleanor and I began our after-school vigils. No one knew how old she was; her birth records were in the old country. The date on her death certificate was an approximation. She was buried at St. John’s, with her husband; her picture, in a matching oval frame, was added to the headstone. When I think of her now, I remember her as being old and ageless at the same time. Even in her last years she stood tall and erect and had to lean way down to kiss me, her work-worn, cold-water hands rough against my face. Her hair was white and thick and coiled atop her head in a Gibson Girl bun. She wore no makeup. She lived a simple, unadorned life.
Though she had always lived in the past, maintaining her Italian heritage while I had the promise of America ahead of me, Grandma was a key link in the chain of long-ago characters who shaped the person I am today. Even now, when I hear “Over the Rainbow,” I’m back in that dreary spare room with my sister, singing softly as Grandma was dying. I like to think that our young voices, so full of hope for the future, eased her way over the rainbow as she passed from this life to the next.
She was old, yes, but she had always been old to me. I never could imagine my grandmother as a young woman. There were no pictures of her early years. For the entire time I knew her, she had dressed all in black, mourning her husband’s death until her own. He died of the Spanish Influenza long before I was born. She had five daughters and two sons and could have lived with any of them, but she chose to live alone in the home she had shared with her husband. That home was a flat on the second floor of a rundown building in a Depression-poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, two blocks from where my family lived.
As soon as I was old enough, I had “Grandma duties.” I was dispatched to her flat once a week to see if she needed anything. I hated that the flat was always shivering cold in winter. There were no hissing radiators, like at home, just a coal-burning stove in her kitchen that we gathered around to keep warm. I hated that I had to climb a creaky staircase to the third floor to use a bathroom that was shared with the other tenants. Its one grimy window rattled in the wind; the lock on the door was broken. I didn’t want to be there, but it was a time when children did as we were told. When my mother said, “Go to Grandma’s and see if she needs anything,” I winced, but I went.
My mother and her sisters were always concerned that their mother would run out of food. One of my responsibilities was to replenish her supplies. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Conversation with Grandma was difficult. Though she had lived more of her life in America than in Italy, she had never learned to speak English. Growing impatient with me because I didn’t understand Italian, she would use props to tell me what she needed. “Burra, burra,” she’d say, pointing to the empty butter dish. Holding up the stale remains of a loaf of bread, she’d say, “Pane, pane,” until I nodded, indicating that I understood. Then she’d put some coins in my hand and wrap my fingers tightly around them, telling me in a gesture I understood, “Don’t lose the money!” Wearing a too-big, too-brown coat bought originally for Eleanor who was plump and looked good in brown, I walked to the Italian bread store on the corner, opened my fist, and let the coins pour out onto the counter. There were just enough to pay for the loaf Grandma wanted.
As much as I hated Grandma’s flat, I loved the bakery. I loved that it was warm and safe there. Its windows, misted over with indoor heat, blocked the harsh outdoors. I loved the tantalizing aroma of yeast at work in the oven that made my stomach rumble with longing. I bought what seemed to me an enormous round of warm, coarsely-crusted bread and carried it home to Grandma. One of my most vivid memories of her is the way she sliced that loaf. Resting it on her left hip and holding it there firmly, she cut generous slices using a knife that looked like a dagger to my young eyes. One of those slices, slathered with butter that melted into its warmth, was for me.
One of our Sunday afternoon excursions was to St. John’s Cemetery to say a prayer at Grandpa’s grave. First, we’d pick up Grandma. After we were all settled in the car—Eleanor up front with my father, I tucked tightly between my mother and grandmother—we headed for the Long Island Expressway which would take us to the cemetery. Eleanor and my father talked and laughed, enjoying the ride; my mother and her mother engaged in lively Italian conversation. I sat, squished and carsick, fighting the waves of nausea that washed over me. When we arrived at St. John’s, Eleanor and I would race between the rows of graves to see who would find Grandpa’s first. His picture, in a sepia-tinged black and white photo framed in a weather-beaten oval, was on his headstone. His hair was all white, but his mustache, extending beyond both corners of his unsmiling mouth, was black. If we’d brought flowers, which we always did on his birthday and at Easter, my father would clear the gravesite of debris while Eleanor and I went to the pump to fill a container of water for the new plantings. Then we knelt in the grass and everyone whispered prayers for Grandpa’s soul. Except Grandma—she just stood there talking out loud to him in Italian, gesturing and shaking her head as if he were right there before her. Though Eleanor and I had never met him, our grandfather was very much a part of our young lives.
When we got to my grandmother’s house after school that day, my mother met us at the door, a finger at her lips, telling us to hush so we wouldn’t disturb Grandma. She led us to the spare room and told us to do our homework quietly. My mother spent the rest of the afternoon tending to her mother. Eleanor and I didn’t know what was happening, but we knew it wasn’t good. We knew the joy of life beginning as new babies were born into our family, but we were shielded from the grim realities at life’s end.
With our homework done and hours to go before we would be home, we did our best to entertain ourselves. At our Friday night movie that week, we had seen “The Wizard of Oz” and were entranced with Judy Garland as a girl our age living this magical adventure. We couldn’t get the music out of our heads. We used it to veil the occasional moan that came from Grandma’s room, singing “Over the Rainbow” again and again, losing ourselves in the promise of “a place where the dreams that you dared to dream really do come true.” Forgetting where we were and why we were there, we raised our voices as we felt the song more deeply, which brought my mother back to hush us again.
Grandma died a few weeks after Eleanor and I began our after-school vigils. No one knew how old she was; her birth records were in the old country. The date on her death certificate was an approximation. She was buried at St. John’s, with her husband; her picture, in a matching oval frame, was added to the headstone. When I think of her now, I remember her as being old and ageless at the same time. Even in her last years she stood tall and erect and had to lean way down to kiss me, her work-worn, cold-water hands rough against my face. Her hair was white and thick and coiled atop her head in a Gibson Girl bun. She wore no makeup. She lived a simple, unadorned life.
Though she had always lived in the past, maintaining her Italian heritage while I had the promise of America ahead of me, Grandma was a key link in the chain of long-ago characters who shaped the person I am today. Even now, when I hear “Over the Rainbow,” I’m back in that dreary spare room with my sister, singing softly as Grandma was dying. I like to think that our young voices, so full of hope for the future, eased her way over the rainbow as she passed from this life to the next.
