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Lost Lessons
Don’t miss an opportunity to learn from those you love.
I’m in the process of learning Italian, not just functional bits and pieces like my past efforts, but with the goal of becoming fluent. The language has called to me since I was a kid. I remember going to the library when I was around twelve or so and checking out a children’s book on Italian words. I can still see the picture of the cat on one of the first pages, il gatto. I remember being excited and frustrated at the same time. It was so confusing! Why were words masculine and feminine? Why were the verbs so complicated? I went to my grandfather for advice.
Grandpa had been born in Sicily and came over with his pregnant mother, her sister, and his older brother in 1920. He turned seven years old on the ship, just days before they arrived at Ellis Island. Like many immigrants, his father had been going back and forth for a few years, working and earning money to bring the rest of his family over. His mother, by all accounts, did not want to be here and was very unhappy. Family lore says that she refused to learn English, speaking in her native language for the rest of her life.
I reasoned, of course, that that meant my grandfather would still know Italian, his dialect anyway. After all, he had to have used it to speak to his mother throughout his life, at the very least. But when I went to him to ask for help, he…
