Heir Loom

On a trip home to New Jersey a few years ago, I sat down with my parents and watched an old video of the honeymoon my grandpa Joe and grandma Eleanor had taken to Italy some 55 years ago.

I was kind of stunned that this tape existed at all. It captured a beautiful, if grainy, journey that included a stop in Castellammare del Golfo, my grandfather’s Sicilian hometown. What really struck me were the bucolic scenes of my great aunts and uncles romping around some sun-drenched hillside, in the prime of their lives.

I sat there, tears gathering in my eyes, less than a month after my grandma Eleanor had died. Others in the video—including my grandfather and several of his siblings—were still alive, but I had only ever known them as elderly figures.

My Zia Anna, for example, was in her 90s by this point. Zia Anna never had kids of her own, but she was undeniably the generous and loving matriarch of our little clan.

I remember vividly visiting her house in Queens every winter, being absolutely accosted with kisses and hugs, like she hadn’t seen us in decades. Us kids would try (and usually fail) to change the channel on her ancient TV set, under the strict condition that we got it back to the Italian station before we left. We sat for interminable dinners of homemade pasta (followed by fig cookies and casatelle) that felt as a kid like torture, but in hindsight were an enormous gift.

The most special time I spent with Zia Anna, however, took place over a few days around Easter of 2016. By this point, my aunt was back in Castellammare del Golfo. I had come to town during my semester abroad in Venice, planning to have a small Sicilian vacation with my parents.

But hours after arriving, my paternal grandfather Domenic died, and my parents got a plane back to America. I stayed in Sicily, somewhat stranded there before my flight back to Venice. I took up residence in my Zia Anna’s apartment for a few days.

My time there became an unexpected and deeply beautiful gift. We spent lazy mornings in her home watching bad Italian game shows, and she showed me how to bake her famous casatelle. I struggled mightily to communicate with her without my mom as translator, but somehow it didn’t matter. We seemed to understand each other enough, and I remember above all feeling held and loved by her during what was a very difficult week.

I visited Castellammare again the following year, in 2017. But that would be my last time in the ancestral hometown for what became 8 years.

In the meantime, my Zia Anna died. Her sister Maria relocated back to the United States. Without them, our family’s trace in the town was all-but-gone, the rest of the cousins and descendants firmly planted in America.

I finally returned this month for a rather bittersweet task: Sorting through the belongings of my Zia Anna, whose home my family is in the process of selling.

The scene that greeted me was, I couldn’t help but think, quite bleak. What was once a warm home filled ornate wood furniture and gilded picture frames had been reduced to a small pile of dusty boxes on the cement floor of a barren garage. Next to them were a wheelchair, walker and small plastic stool. This was all that remained of my Zia Anna’s home.

I draped my jacket on the wheelchair, plopped down on the stool and started rummaging. The contents of these boxes were at turns breathtaking and boring. I quickly tossed the piles of old utility bills from decades past, but I lingered on many old portraits of my aunt.

The vast majority of my time in that garage was spent paging through endless (endless!) flip-books of photos that my Zia Anna had taken herself. She was quite the shutterbug, capturing what seemed to be every party, every birthday, every wedding and every holiday she ever attended or hosted. Mixed within these were many proud poses in front of a giant squash or a flowering bush or a thriving front-lawn garden. In some moments I was numbed by the sheer repetition of these albums. But in others I marveled at the historical record Zia Anna left behind: An entire life, close to a century, captured on film. Much like when I watched the video of my grandparents’ honeymoon, I felt as though I was witnessing a way of life that has been almost completely lost to time.

I stayed in Castellammare for another couple of days after I finished collecting and shipping my aunt’s belongings stateside.

One particularly sunny morning, I rented an e-bike and rode out of the city toward the countryside. My destination was Scopello, an adorable village along the coast, but along the way I detoured down a bumpy dirt road with the idea of finding my aunt’s old summer house, which we called her “campagna.”

Zia Anna and her husband built the house back in the 80s, and divided it into multiple apartments. In the summer months, they’d live in one unit and rent out the rest to vacationers: a proto-Airbnb.

My family had visited the campagna a few times during our various trips to Sicily. By the time I had last seen it in 2017, it was nearly dormant. In need of serious repairs, my elderly aunt had stopped renting it out. The property has since passed to a distant nephew, who has also left it vacant.

After a few wrong turns on my e-bike, I found it. Just as I remembered, the squat, yellow building sat behind its gate and a buffer of scrubby plants. I stuck my phone through the fence to capture the decay: Cracking cement, rusting metal, graying stucco.

I took a somber selfie in front (why, I’m not sure, maybe for posterity?) and then kept cycling on toward Scopello.

But the image of the old campagna stayed with me. It didn’t help that Castellammare, which is bursting with tourists during the summer, is near-empty in the off-season. The vibe, only augmented by clouds and rain that arrived later, was a bit gloomy.

Still, I made the best of my time there, taking walks from my Airbnb through the city and along the gorgeous waterfront. It wasn’t until I returned home to Milan that the sadness of the experience crashed over me.

I sat down on my couch, holding a photo of my great aunt posed proudly in front of some sort of fruit tree, and played the theme from Cinema Paradiso. The tears arrived slowly and then all at once, overwhelming me.

I cried for my Zia Anna, but also for the entire chapter of my family’s history in Castellammare that is now over. Decades—no, generations—of history, finished. I let the song loop and let the sorrow flow out of me.

I consider it lucky that my Zia Anna lived to be 98, that I had any time at all with her in our family’s hometown. But I’m heartbroken that next time I go to Castellammare, I’ll be just another tourist.

The view from the coast near Castellammare is absolutely stunning.