Earlier this week I was saddened to hear that Amedeo Sorrentino – my nonno – loved to tell dirty jokes. The sad part is that he never told me a single one. I would’ve told it today. Instead, I will talk about my nonno.
Amedeo Sorrentino was born in Lanciano, in 1923, the sixth of eleven children. He was hardly a man when Mussolini’s army forced him into a uniform and sent him into North Africa. He witnessed his regiment destroyed by the British, saw friends die, and was taken as a prisoner of war to the UK. He never forgot those terrible days, even into his old age. I am sure he wished he did.
When he returned home after the war, he discovered his mother had been killed during the fighting. When Nonno told this story, he said the real war, the real tragedy, was at home, not on the battlefield.
Nonno met Giulia a few years later. To hear Giulia tell it, Amedeo was only one of many suitors to come calling, but he was the only one to make her laugh. She could see then what we would all come to know, that Amedeo was a good man.
Because they were both poor, Giulia and Amedeo waited until after Easter to announce their engagement so they wouldn’t have to give Easter gifts to each other’s families. They married on a rainy day in 1948, after their borrowed wedding car got stuck in the mud and had to be pulled free by an oxen. They ate their wedding dinner in Giulia’s parents’ bedroom, the largest room in the house. Afterwards one of Amedeo’s friends set off firecrackers he made from leftover artillery shells he’d found in the fields after the war.
We all know these stories. Because Nonno’s stories are our stories. They are the family lore.
Amedeo and Guilia’s first daughter, Rosalina, was born later that year. Then Elisa and Silvana. Amedeo tended someone else’s tobacco fields to support his new family. He never smoked, but in my favourite photo of Nonno he is wearing his army uniform and is holding a cigarette between his fingers. The photographer gave him the cigarette because he thought it would make him look older. It didn’t. He still looked like a boy.
Farm work was hard and paid very little. Eventually Guilia convinced Amedeo to follow his sister Angela and her husband Pierino to Calgary, at least for a few years, to make some real money.
Life in Canada was difficult, too. Amedeo tended greenhouses in the morning and poured concrete at night. But the hardest part about Canada was being away from his wife and daughters. After two years, he and Giulia decided that it would be better for the family to live in Canada than to reunite back in Italy. It was a difficult decision for Nonno – he’d never wanted to leave Italy at all – but giving his family the life they deserved was more important than returning to the country he loved.
So, with the money Amedeo sent them, Giulia, Rosalina, Elisa and Silvana boarded for the long seasick journey west. And the family reunited here in Calgary.
More family followed. First, Amedeo’s brothers Salvatore and Guerino came. Then his sister Assunta. And Giulia’s sister Tettina. Amedeo and Giulia made it possible for all these people, and many more, to come to Canada. Nearly everyone in this church today is here because of their generosity. Like I said, Nonno’s stories are our stories, too.
In Calgary, Amedeo and Giulia watched their girls grow into women, graduate from high school, and become wives and mothers themselves. They brought home seven grandchildren. And we, dutifully, provided eleven great-grandchildren. Nonno was there for all of us. All the time. He taught some of us how to parallel park by standing behind the car like a pylon and having us back in beside him. You learn to park pretty quick when failure means running over your own grandfather.
And when we figured it out, Nonno wasn’t just relieved he’d survived. He was proud. He was so proud of all of us, for everything we did. Every accomplishment, big or small. How many soccer and hockey games did Nonno watch? How many dance and piano recitals?
The fact that my son got to know his bis-nonno, the man he was named after, lightens today’s sadness a little. And I know my sisters and cousins feel the same about their own children. Our kids – all eleven of them – will remember the warmth and smile and laugh of their great-grandfather. How many people can say that? What a rare and beautiful gift that is.
This week I heard the origin story of Nonno’s last great-grandchild. Sabrina told me that when she and James first started dating, James wasn’t sure he wanted to have children at all. But meeting Nonno was one of the reasons he changed his mind. Nonno’s gentle way with his grandchildren, the love he showered them with, and the admiration they gave back to him, convinced James that he wanted to be a grandfather one day, too. He wanted to be a nonno. But you can’t be a nonno without first being a daddy, and now we have Faye. Nonno was building the family in ways he didn’t even realize.
Nonno is gone now. And he was ready to go. We all know that his final days were not his best days. The rules borne of the pandemic made the last few months unbearably lonely for him and for so many others. In lieu of flowers, in addition to donating to a charity of our choosing, perhaps we could promise to visit with our aging family and friends more often than we do. That could be another part of Nonno’s legacy. I think he’d like that.
In Palestine, when someone passes away, people say to the family of the deceased “May God grant you his remaining years.” The idea is that when someone dies he leaves behind unlived years. These are a gift for the people he loved the most. I always thought this was a beautiful sentiment.
But Nonno was 97. I don’t think he had many years remaining to give away. He used them all up himself.
Nonno may not have left any of his years behind for us, but he taught us the best way to live our own. He showed us how to be generous and kind. He showed us the value of taking things slow – just ask anyone who had to drive behind him. He taught us how to grow things and build things and fix things. He taught us the value of hard work and sacrifice, and that the love of family reigns above all else.
So no, Amedeo did not grant us any remaining years. But he gave us everything else. Goodbye, Nonno. Rest well.
