71/366: Mary Lou

I loved staying with her family when we visited the relatives in South Bend. She lives where I want to live: in Tucson, in an old adobe house that she and her husband remodeled. Mary has her mom’s laugh and bright eyes. She’s more than a cousin to me: a sister.

70/366: Gina

Vince’s youngest was constantly in trouble as a teenager—skipping school, running away. When she came out at age 16, no one took her seriously, but I did. I love her for her humor, her laugh like her mother’s, her courage in insisting on living her own life in her own way.

I have so many stories about my cousins that it’s hard to write just one entry for each of them. I can’t let Gina go by without passing on this bit of family lore: When she was in high school, she’d stop by Nana’s house every day for lunch. So, whenever we were out with Nana, she wouldn’t let us throw any of our food away. She’d insist that we take everything home, because it could be “Gina’s lunch.” She’d make us wrap up extra rolls, leftover sandwiches, even sausages, and she’d put them in her purse—or worse, make us put them in ours. To this day, my sister and I still joke about leftovers at restaurant meals: “Don’t throw that away! That’s Gina’s lunch!” Someday we’ll have to send Gina all the leftovers we’ve amassed over the years...

69/366: Vicki

Always short-shrifted by her dad for not being her brother, Vic resents her twin to this day, but I know she can’t help but love him. I admire the hard path she chose, working with abused kids. When we travel to Italy together, we both feel like we have come home.

68/366: Vince

Growing up, Vince was the bad boy who never got caught. He made good by becoming a surgeon. The story goes that, not to be outdone by his sister Mary, Uncle Vince announced the birth of his first kids to Nana: “We had twins too! And one of them’s a BOY!”

67/366: Tina

At our reunion, the cousins exchanged gifts of jewelry. I got Tina’s silver oyster shell pendant. One of the “big kids,” she intimidated me in childhood. Now it is a privilege to know her strength, her delicate beauty, her wide smile, her black eyes. And now I see the pearl inside.

66/366: Anthony

Even his sisters had a crush on Tony’s smoldering Italian sexiness. The family’s black sheep eschewed academia, owned a popular bar in town. His first troubled marriage produced a troubled daughter who became a teenaged mother. One night he drove to the hospital with chest pains. He died two days later.

65/366: Roberta

As kids, it was Roberta whom I played with in the Lukes family. She played viola, studied ethnomusicology, painted beautiful watercolors. She may have died from the cancer, but she didn’t lose the battle. She faced both life and death with more courage and grace than most people can even imagine.

64/366: Marguerite

Mary’s youngest child is as beautiful as a movie star, speaks three languages, and originated one of my favorite life sayings. Referring to the futility of expecting what some people (such as a mother or a boyfriend) just cannot give you, she said, “You can’t buy cabbages in a shoe store.”

63/366: Stephanie

The family lore is that she and my sister looked so much alike, they could have been twins. Mary’s third daughter taught piano, played the organ for a synagogue, and died at 46 of colon cancer. She left a daughter, Carolyn, and a son, David, who studies piano and plays brilliantly.

62/366: Kathleen

Once, discussing our mutual desire to remain childless, she said, “You can love things and not want to have them. I love monkeys, but I wouldn’t want one in my house.” Like all of her observations, spot-on, and dispensed with wit. (And did I mention her beauty?) Happy Birthday, sweetie.

[Tried to post a pic here of you and Gwen, but Blogger isn't cooperating!!!]

61/366: Mary Ellen

The youngest of Nana’s grandchildren is gorgeous, like all of Ro’s kids. Diagnosed with a brain tumor last summer, she is recovering from the surgery. "Taking care of myself has become my full-time job," she says. But she remains one of the the most loving, generous, sweet-spirited people I've ever known.

60/366: Kicks

Golden girl. My lifetime dog, for whom I waited a lifetime. Every single day with her brought me a lifetime’s worth of joy and love. I can’t believe it’s over, but I try to trust that she will continue to take care of me. And that I will see her again.

59/366: Tere

Named after Nana, Tere inherited her dad’s Irish red hair and freckles but Ro’s Italian eyes. Because of the age gap, we didn’t really become friends until adulthood. She has an English degree, so we could talk a lot about literature, but we’re always more interested in dissecting our family’s dynamics.

58/366: Andy

Ro’s youngest son, a huge, handsome jock with a charming grin. Until you start talking to him, you might not realize how smart he is, and how perceptive. His skill at the Vegas gaming tables has gotten him thrown out of more than a few casinos. He tends to attract crowds.

57/366: Reed

Closest to my age of all the Fragomeni cousins, he is funny and sexy. We played and sang together at Nana’s 85th birthday party. When we were little kids, he teased and tormented me mercilessly. He claims not to remember any of it. Now, of course, I love him to pieces.

56/366: Domenico

Nonno never learned English, so I never talked with him. Back when he was raising his family in Ohio, he scabbed during a union strike. That earned him a shotgun blast through the bedroom window one night. They say he died of a broken heart after his brother stole from him.

[This is the flag of the commune of Siderno, my Nonno's home town in Calabria.]

55/366: Terese

Nana would serve us fried squash blossoms, homemade pasta with sauce made from her garden’s tomatoes, wine from Nonno’s cellar, and always, the incredible bread that no one could duplicate. The smells in her kitchen were intoxicating. She ruled South Bend/Mishawaka. Four hundred people, including the mayor, attended her funeral.

[This is the Ardore castello, the 12th-century castle in the town of Ardore Superiore,
where my Nana was born and raised. When we visited it in 2001,
one of my cousins promptly dubbed it "our castle."]

54/366: Zio Vincenzo (Uncle Vince)

At the lake house, he’d take us out in the boat and let us steer. We’d ride in his convertible with the top down, burn sparklers on summer evenings. I liked their house best. But if you play cards with him, be careful. My mom says, “Vince gioca per il sangue.”

53/366: Zia Maria (Aunt Mary)

Her bread is the closest to Nana’s of all the aunts’. Her lasagne is made with homemade noodles. She makes gorgeous quilts, and she still calls my mom every week. She has lost two of her six children: one to cancer, one to heart disease. A third has metastatic breast cancer.

52/366: Tom

Once he said to me, “You are voluptuous.” And, “If I were straight, I’d be attracted to you.” We started riding lessons together, but after six months the AIDS made him stop. He’d be 49 today. I still miss him. But I think sometimes he still watches me when I ride.