And I Hugged Him Through His Overcoat and Time

That's my paternal grandfather, Raffaele Carbone, the one who set sail from Naples at the age of 17 on a ship called Citta di Torino, arriving in New York on July 13, 1905. I've written about him in The Secret Language and Time Traveling and no doubt elsewhere in this blog, but this particular photo caught my eye as I looked through an old album yesterday, and he's been very much on my mind. It only just occurred to me that he died in February (1966) and I used to dream about him with some regularity every February for several years thereafter. It made me feel as though he were visiting me, and it was comforting to think that, because in real life I did not have as much of a relationship with him as I would have liked.

The truth is he could seem gruff and distant to me, and I was just an annoying little girl. But there are so many things I wish I had asked him. I didn't realize how much the stories of a grandfather would have meant, especially this one, whose brave migration led to outcomes he could never have imagined.

Of course he would have told his stories best not in English, but his native tongue. I wrote about my earliest memories of him and the sounds of his southern-accented Italian in The Secret Language, which begins:

My grandfather Raffaele had a bungalow someplace, but all I can remember of it is a triangle of sunlight and faded sea green walls and the curlicue cadence of the words that it held. He and my father spoke Italian. They talked in the tempo of the south, a fervent and volatile kind of speech whose words never ended flat but spun in capricious dances through the air and concluded on magnificent mellifluous vowels. It was a sumptuous, sun-drenched language, and in its passionate rhythms I intuitively understood the punchy ardors of life. I wished my tongue would know this dance, wondered what the secrets were that could only be expressed in such a way.

Italian is still music to my ear; it never lost its magic, though I never learned to speak it. But the picture of him above transcends spoken language and reveals something of his strength, pride, and stubbornness. In his expression I see some vague displeasure, yet in the way he holds his head and strides forward, determination to overcome. If he was distracted and off-putting at times, it was probably a reaction to the plain fact that life was a struggle, and the dreams of prosperity that had lured him to America were forever beyond his grasp. Although shrewd and scrappy, he certainly made his share of mistakes and errors in judgment, and there was one personal lapse of loyalty that my father may have never completely forgiven, the residue of which I sensed when I observed them together, but it became a lesson to me about love and how it persists despite pain and flaws and great disappointment.

Something else I like about this picture is my grandfather's footwear, which may even be sandals. It's a funny little quirk, maybe a southern Italian thing, but even in New York he seldom wore dark or heavy shoes. I remember him in some sort of mesh loafers, shoes to keep your step light and cool. I remember, too, that he loved fresh produce and gardens and had a way with plants. We had a skeletal little pear tree in the yard of our house on Long Island, a tree that seemed unlikely ever to bear fruit. I don't know what magic my grandfather performed, but one day while visiting he examined it closely, did some digging around the base, and dusted off his hands. The tree yielded tiny, sweet, pale green pears that year and forever after.

Here are words I wrote about my February dreams of him:

He gave me a gypsy ring with ruby stones, and spoke to me in an eloquent wordless language that I effortlessly understood. He visited me many times, and he always returned in the winters to bring me the sunlight and warmth of greenhouses, gardens, and southern Italy. He began a journey in 1905, and had reached the eastern shore; it was for me, he said, to continue, and so I have. He gave me his trust and his yearning. He told me about work, which is good in itself. He told me about love, fierce, irrational, and everlasting. And he told me about outrageous hope that can stare down anything and never blink, hope which is born and reborn in a thousand incarnations. And I knew the secret language then, and I hugged him through his overcoat and time.

I miss those dream visits. I'm glad I found this picture to conjure him up.