One of the fondest memories I have from being a small child is that of my great grandparents, Lena and Matthew, otherwise known to me as Nana and Old Pop.
When I was little and we lived in New Jersey, my mother would take me to visit them, and I have very distinct recollections of their house, the kitchen, and the cuckoo clock. They say the sense of smell brings back instant memories, and I remember well the way their house smelled, especially when Nana made her homemade pizzas.
She would toss the dough in the air, and I would marvel at the way she would catch it and make the pie. I wish I had her recipe now. As it is, I make my husband’s family recipe for pizza, fondly called Aunt Marina’s Pizza, after my husband’s late aunt who recently passed away. Marina loved hearing that I made the family recipe regularly (much to my friends’ delight), which has been around for over 100 years.
As for the cuckoo clock, I loved the way it made the “cuckoo” sound. I would sit on the floor and wait for it to chime.
The shame of all of this is that I wish I had been older in order to know my great grandparents better. As we age, we wish there could have been more time for this, right? There are so many questions I would have liked to have asked them. As it is, I write fictional stories, many of them about the relationship between a granddaughter and a grandmother, and I can only imagine the wealth of information I could have gleaned had they lived longer. And while it’s true, I was lucky enough to have had good relationships with both sets of my grandparents, but I did not know my great grandparents that way, as I was very young. They spoke Italian and broken English, and I remember family dinners where my Poppy (grandfather) would talk to Old Pop (my great grandfather) in Italian.
And Old Pop outlived my Poppy, who died of Leukemia at 63.
All of this to say the obvious: remember to cherish the time you have with those around you. Keep a journal of things you want to remember and write down recipes that you want to hand down to the next generation. And always, always remember to toss the pizza dough.
About the author:
STEPHANIE VERNI is the author of THE LETTERS IN THE BOOKS; FROM HUMBUG TO HUMBLE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF EBENEZER SCROOGE; BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE; INN SIGNIFICANT; LITTLE MILESTONES; THE POSTCARD; and ANNA IN TUSCANY. She is also a co-author of the textbook, EVENT PLANNING & MANAGEMENT: COMMUNICATING THEORY & PRACTICE. Currently an adjunct professor at Stevenson University Online, she instructs communication courses for undergraduate and graduate students. She and her husband reside in Severna Park, Maryland, and have two children. On the side, she enjoys writing travel articles for marylandroadtrips.com.
Connect with Stephanie on Instagram at stephanieverniwrites.
Check out Stephanie’s books on Amazon here.
