When I look at the photo above I see pure joy. It was taken on my wedding day many, many years ago. I don’t usually post personal photos here.
I am the oldest of 16 grandchildren. I can picture myself in the place and time of all except the first one’s birth (I was too young). I remember the day Gary was born, we were all at my grandparent’s house, anxiously waiting for the call. I believe the phone was blue, it was hanging on the wall—a rotary phone. At the time, you didn’t know the gender of the baby beforehand, so we waited with excitement for the call. (One of the reasons I decided not to find out the gender of my son before his birth.) With each birth, a different memory. Some I can even pinpoint the day of the week, the weather, and where I was standing.
I am closer in age to my aunts than most of my first cousins. Half of them were born after I went to college. We are slowly scattering across the country and multiple contents but NY is always home-base.
The recent passing of our young cousin Jessie has caught us all off guard. There was already so much sadness in the world and it just made everything so much heavier. I watched many of my cousins (I have hundreds) express their sadness.
Unfortunately I have witnessed many family members and friends passing from long distance. Most of them were at the end of their lifespan so we knew our time was limited. Each time I said goodbye in NY, I said it with intention because I never knew if that time would be the last. I made my peace. I missed many funerals and was ok with it because as Aunt Dot always said, she wanted to see me while she was alive, not after she was dead. I found a path to grieving here in California, mostly at hot sweaty yoga classes. Something about being in that hot room, practicing yoga with other humans, tears disguised as sweat. Except this time there was no yoga studio to go to.
The passing of Jessie hits so much harder. For one she was 22 and about to graduate college. She had overcome so many obstacles in her life and was a story of success. She had two beautiful children she loved dearly. The double whammy is that this occurred unexpectedly in the time of Covid-19. Ten people maximum at a funeral. No room filled with people to share a memory or tear. For a close Italian-American family that spends every moment together, it was difficult enough to social distance but now we are told to mourn social distantly—heartbreaking. My aunt couldn’t have her siblings there to support her.
So where do we go from here? I do not have an answer. I have found a way to honor those I loved dearly that have departed this world in a variety of ways. Cooking the meals they used, flowers in the vase they gave me, etc… I will find a way to honor Jessie but as an immediate way, I have decided to dedicate every single yoga practice to a different cousin beginning with my grandparents 16 grandchildren.
With each death a new song emerges. The current soundtrack playing in my head for the past few weeks is Family, performed by Dar Williams, written by Pierce Ray Pettis.
Can you fix this? It's a broken heart.
It was fine, but it just fell apart.
It was mine, but now I give it to you,
Cause you can fix it, you know what to do.
Let your love cover me,
Like a pair of angel wings,
You are my family,
You are my family.
We stood outside in the summer rain,
Different people with a common pain.
A simple box in that hard red clay,
Where we left him to always remain.
Let your love cover me,
Like a pair of angel wings,
You are my family,
You are my family.
The child who played with the moon and stars,
Waves a snatch of hay in a common barn,
In the lonely house of Adam's fall
Lies a child, it's just a child that's all, crying
Let your love cover me,
Like a pair of angel wings,
You are my family,
You are my family.
How Do You Teach Gratitude To Children?
One thing I have struggled with over the past few years is how to teach my nine-year-old gratitude. He will often get upset over what he doesn’t have. We are very fortunate and I try to explain this to him but it’s hard for the nine year old mind to understand this perspective. I remember having a strong sense of gratitude at a young age. How did I learn gratitude? I can’t remember for sure but it must have been a combination of listening to my parent’s childhood stories and sitting at the dining room table at Aunt Mary’s house on Sundays. Every Sunday my aunts, great aunts, great uncles, and grandparents would gather around the dinner table eating macaroni and talk for hours. Maybe their stories of growing up in Manhattan and Brooklyn in tiny apartments instilled a sense of gratitude within me.
A few years ago, I started going around the dinner table stating one thing I was thankful for and asked anyone dining with us, including my son, to join in. This quickly turned into a silly way for my son to make fun of me and the activity. I dug a little deeper to find a solution. At the beginning of November, I decided to place a jar on the dinner table with a stack of colorful papers next to it. Each night I asked him to write something he was thankful for and to place it in the jar. He didn't have to share it, he only had to fold it and place it in the jar. I also wrote something each night. I haven’t looked through the jar, my thought was to pull out random papers from the jar on Thanksgiving and read them.
He quickly took a liking to the activity and became concerned on days he thought he might not be home to contribute to the jar. After seeing how concerned he was, I knew something was working. We both have respected the jar and left it as is, adding to it each night. On occasion, one or two of his notes have fallen in the jar open and I peaked to see what he wrote. One night it was about our dog that had to go back to the animal hospital because she tore out her stitches. Sometimes he will tell me what he wrote before he places it in the jar, for example, “I am thankful I am going to New York.” This one also fell open in the jar so I snapped a photo to share.
I’m counting this as a great step in teaching my son gratitude. How do you practice gratitude? How are you teaching it children?
Mind • Body • Community • Spirit
When it comes to wellness, people often talk about mind, body, and soul (or spirit). Rarely are the terms wellness, health and community used in the same sentence. A few years ago, while learning more about Italian-Americans, I discovered the town Roseto, Pennsylvania. There were a large number of Italian-American immigrants that settled in this town and stayed for over four generations. Families that have moved away still return to Roseto every year for “The Big Time”, a celebration of the community.
What makes Roseto, PA stand out?
Regardless of diet and exercise, the people in the town of Roseto, as compared to neighboring towns, had fewer heart attacks. Even with a diet high in fat, loaded with pounds of spaghetti, meats, and smoking, the people in Roseto had the lowest rate of heart attacks in the United States. When two doctors realized that people in Roseto were having fewer heart attacks than anywhere else in the country, they decided to investigate. The town was studied over 50 years, looking for the first time beyond individual health habits and into the behavior of people in the community. It was discovered that in Roseto, three generations of families lived together and the community was supportive. People helped each other. People talked to their neighbors. People shared meals with each other. People had less heart attacks. This was named the Roseto Effect. As time went on and the younger generations moved away or spent more time outside of the local community, the numbers of heart attacks were no longer the low numbers they once were.
What can we learn from Roseto?
When community is strong and people are cared for, it can have a positive impact on their stress levels which may overall effect their health. So when we think about being healthy, we need to not only look at diet and exercise, but our greater community. If you want to learn more about the beautiful town of Roseto, watch this segment from the PBS documentary The Italian-Americans.
How I build community
Growing up in an Italian-American family, I witnessed the beauty of large family gatherings. I know at any time I can call a family member with a question or for help with something. I have grown up watching the culture of community within my family, extending our love, kindness, and a meal, to family and beyond. In fact, we’ve unofficially adopted a few friends into our family along the way. I build community by cooking for people and sharing a meal. I enjoy cooking and having a room full of people to feed. I’ve been doing this since I moved to California and I feel it has personally helped me foster the relationships I have here.
This week in my classes, before we began asanas, I asked everyone to introduce themselves to someone they didn’t know and to tell them one interesting thing about themselves. The vibration of chatter in the yoga room was beautiful. People spoke with people they have seen many times before and never even knew their name. At the end of class we closed with a meditation on the person they met in class and then someone they loved dearly in their lives, wishing them both well.
How do you build community?
Sources:
Egolf, B., Lasker, J., Wolf, S., & Potvin, L. (1992). The Roseto effect: A 50-year comparison of mortality rates. Am J Public Health, 82(8), 1089-1092.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/video/italian-americans-introduction