Grazie Mille

In this season of gratitude, I've got a thousand thanks for my heritage, my family, and most of all -- my parents.

For years, I dreamed of traveling to Italy with my Dad and reconnecting with the roots that shaped our family. His parents emigrated from Sicily and although he made multiple trips there in his youth, he hasn’t been back in 50 years. This Thanksgiving, the trip became a reality and we included my Mom in the adventure.

I was a teenager the last time I traveled with my parents. Vacations growing up in our middle-class family were more the wood-paneled station wagon roadtrip variety to places like to Hershey, PA and the Florida coast. I didn’t get a passport and begin finding joy in international travel until a CIA career that brought me to far away places. This trip was going to be a new experience for all of us.

Rome and Amalfi Coast

I did much of the planning: built our itinerary, used miles to book our flights and snag upgrades, secured the rental car and did the driving, reserved the Airbnbs, etc. Our journey began in Rome, where ancient history and the ghosts of fallen empires whispered from every corner. We toured the Vatican, the Colosseum, and the ruins of the Roman forum. We ate our fill of Roman pastas like carbonara and cacio e pepe and began a very serious search for Italy’s best gelato.

We ate at the oldest pizzeria in the world in Naples and toured the ruins of Pompeii on our way to the picturesque Amalfi Coast. Amid colorful cliffside towns of Amalfi, Ravello, and Positano we discovered ancient churches and shops, plunged my feet into the Mediterranean sand & surf, and my parents almost killed me (I’m only half kidding) after accidentally leading them on a very steep hour-long hike to a beautiful villa perched above the sea with views of Sicily in the distance.

Castelli Return to Sicily

After bunking together in an overnight ferry, we arrived in Sicily. First we explored Palermo—a city rich in Sicily’s Arab and Norman (Vikings who settled in Northern France and eventually conquered Sicily) influences on architecture and culture. Dad and I tried local street food like arancini (fried risotto) and meusa (a sandwich of chopped and fried veal spleen & lung) while Mom admired our adventurous food choices from a safe distance. She was happy to enjoy Sicily’s sweets like delicious cannolis, almond cookies, and even got to blow out a birthday candle on a traditional baked cassata cake.

After visiting the seaside towns of Cefalu and Taormina and just as we began feeling a little travel weary, the trip climbed to its emotional peak arriving in my grandmother’s hometown, Calamonaci.

Calamonaci is a small town with a population of about a thousand and sits within a lush valley surrounded by rolling hills. Here lives my Dad’s first-cousin’s Enza and Fina whom he visited throughout his childhood but he hasn’t seen since they came to my parent’s wedding 47 years ago.

We toured our cousin Giuseppe’s orange and olive groves, visited my great-grandmother’s grave, found my grandparent’s original wedding certificate at a local church, and connected with new-found relatives that helped to fill out our family tree.

Enza and Fina don’t speak a lick of English and I’ve never met them before—but that didn’t stop them from doting on me, feeding me plenty of pasta and homemade sauce, and embracing me with kind love and affection you might expect from a grandmother. If you don’t have a sweet little old Italian lady in your life, I suggest you find one (or in my case two) and adopt them asap. It was like discovering pieces of my heart I didn’t know were missing.

When I planned this trip, I didn’t realize that my grandfather died while visiting Sicily at the exact same age my father is now. It became a running joke that Dad isn’t allowed to die on this trip. Instead, I got to witness my father come to life. It was wildly entertaining to watch him hold court with relatives and folks from around town, drawing on a Sicilian language that had lay dormant for 30 years only to be flawlessly awakened with passion and plenty of hand gestures. He was in his element. At one point his cousins asked my Mom and I if he is always this joyful and entertaining—to which we replied: when he’s with family.

It was a special experience for all of us to spend such quality time with these relatives. To link past with present. To know and feel connected to something greater than your immediate circle of concern. This was our homeland. This was our tribe. And while ours is bonded in blood, the welcome and sense of belonging we received was a choice of love that transcends DNA.

As the trip wound down, my Dad shared with me “we couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

My Tribe

I’ve grown pretty fond of my parents. My Dad is an absolute character but the very best kind because it’s unintentional and full of love. My Mom balances brilliance with an amazing sense of humor and the best laugh. After years of working tirelessly and living for their kids, it’s fun to watch them now shift ever so slightly from worrying about each of us and lean a bit more into life’s joy for themselves.

I’ve seen enough of my own friends and loved ones lose one or both of their parents, losses that I know hurt a bit more during the holiday season. It’s not lost on me how lucky I am to still have both of mine. I have such deep gratitude for them. Any modest success or stability I have is a testament to their constant support and confidence in me. Any resiliency I’ve found on the other side of trial and heartache is due to their unwavering love. At this particular stage of my own middle-age navigating the uncertainty of a rapidly changing world, I find myself eager to seek their counsel and hear stories of their own lives so as to soak up their wisdom.

My Mom and Dad are a gift and so was this trip together.

This season, I hope you’ll find your own reasons for gratitude. To put your phone down and touch grass. To connect with what’s important. To find your own tribe (blood or chosen). To marvel at the beautiful world around us. To cherish quality time with those you love. And embrace all those reasons in your life for a thousand thanks.