Sepia-colored images on the wrinkled photo
dissolve the faded smiles and blurred features of my parents
proud Italian immigrants standing in front of their new establishment
first-time restaurant owners
Garden Spaghetti House the sign above their heads in bold letters
euphemism bastardization of our family name
Garden literal translation for Giardino a word that stumbles and mumbles
from the lips of locals, i.e. yokels
Ya’ll talk funny, they often chide and I endure the mispronunciation of that
surname by my 4th grade teacher the entire school year
Foreigners in a foreign land divided by words and ways clothes and customs
Italian, not Eye-tal-yun? Spaghetti, not Pas-ketti? What the heck is a Pizza?
Would the real strange-speaking people please stand up!
Our family is a garden of bright, fragrant flowers variegated vegetation and a few blooming idiots hiding in a closet somewhere
My younger brother the wandering vine meanders around the planted rows
My big brother grows straight and strong rooted in old-country ways
My sister the rose that smells sweetest sprouts thorns when picked
My father the tough cactus prickly to touch moist and succulent inside
Self-appointed gardener my mother is gone
Who will tend Il Giardino our family garden now?
Who will plant fertilize and prune the errant leaves that grow awry?
Who will gather us to arrange a brilliant bouquet for the Thanksgiving feast?
Not I
I am the tenacious weed who sprouts and re-sprouts
wherever I find fertile soil
I am not my brothers’ or for that matter sister’s keeper
The plot is vacant
The ground is barren
The earth is dry
Nothing sprouts but memories
sepia-colored and mispronounced
- About the Author
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Living my personal mission statement, “Each One, Teach One,” my greatest blessing is being the mother of two, grandmother of three and a lifelong educator. A graduate of UF and UNF, I am the former principal of St. Paul’s Catholic School in Jacksonville Beach, Florida and executive director of Tree Hill Nature Center in Jacksonville.
Since retirement my avocation is now my vocation – freelance writing. The technical writing of past professional life evolved into more creative genres of poetry, short fiction and memoir. My goal is to invoke the entire spectrum of human emotions in my reader: longing to laughter, pain to promise, despair to discernment.
