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Finding Family
 
FINDING FAMILY Submit a Tale here | More Tales
I have always wanted to travel to Roma, Italy. Well, I arrived there in the year 2000 on my honeymoon with a very wonderful man. When I arrived there I felt a feeling I have never felt. It was as if I was looking for something or someone. I had a broken foot which limited my travel throughout Europe. But this did nothing to what I would find...

You see my great grandfather was born and raised in Roma - actually in a little village outside of Roma called Compo lie Appionino in the mountains of Italy. I found out just before we went that he was also an altar boy at the Vatican. He came here to the US somewhere around the year of 1910. I remember him very well. He used to make his own wine in the backyard of the home that he built here. Even today this is a very special place where my grandmother still lives, and a place where we all gather every Sunday for homemade pasta. He passed away at the age of 98. I was about 13 years old.

My grandmother explained to me that we had family there. On the second day of our trip I found my cousins. They were beautiful, not only on the outside but on the inside. They came to me immediately, without even knowing who I was. They only remember Maria, my grandmother, and her father. They took us everywhere in Roma, they took us to dinner several times without letting us pay a dime. The hospitality that I experienced there was something that I have never ever experienced before and I shall never forget.

I think the biggest surprise was when they took me and my new husband up to the mountains to Compo lie. This is the place that I originated in. I walked into the home where my great grandfather was born. I walked on the same mountains that he walked on. I drank from the same spigot that he drank from. I saw the same view that he had seen all those years ago. I walked the same cemetery that had been there years ago when he was there, and I saw graves of very old family members that I had never heard of.

I often wonder what it was like back then. I yearn to go back very soon because I know I have not seen everything that I was supposed to see on that trip. My grandmother went there 25 years ago. We are going in June of 2001, if I can get her on the plane, but this time I'm going to take my son so he can experience all that I have - a walk back in time.

Thank you for letting me share this very beautiful experience.