Sicily

Taking them to Sicily

In November/December 2024, we fulfilled Dad’s - and his parent's - request: “Take me to Sicily!” 

His remains are at the cemetery in Roccalumera, Sicily: Cimitero Di Roccalumera 

Dad kept, for 15-16 years, the ashes of his parents, our grandparents: Josephine and Alex.  Their wishes were to go to Sicily, and Dad said he’d get them there some day.  Well, you either get something done, or you don’t, and we did it!!!  We got them all to Sicily. 

All three, or at least our portions, are in two containers, a flowered one chosen by Kelley-Jo, and a blue one chosen by Bobby.  After much searching for urns and the like, we found these at a hardware store in Sicily, each was a container for a toilet brush. . .  So be it. We repurposed them. 

After trips to multiple hardware stores and much negotiation in Italian, the plan/process involved glue-cement, a caulking glue, and the aforementioned toilet-brush holders.

Getting the actual ashes to Sicily involved innovation and much apprehension.  You see, there weren’t many legal ways to do it.  So we wished and dreamed and hoped, and the ashes just showed up there.  Amazing!  In the end, we found them outside of Sciglio, Grandma's town, and got them to their destined spot, at the grave of Grandma Josephine’s mother: Rosaria Pagano. 

Dad’s actual will stated, “If and when I cease to exist, I wish that my cremated remains be buried alongside my mother and father’s remains in the crypt of my grandmother Rose Pagano located in Sciglio, Sicily, Italy.”

There’s two things to take from this: 

1) Dad had a futile optimism regarding his own mortality. . . “'if' and when", "if"? 

2) you can’t always get what you want.  And if he wanted his parents in the crypt, he should’ve done it himself.

Oh the ashes are with our Great Grandmother Rosaria, but “in the crypt,” proved to be not only lofty but untenable.

Finally, the remains of the three sit nicely in our specifically designed containers and are cemented to the site. 

Here’s the before picture after Kelley-Jo and I took time to clean it off, like dusting off memories of pasts we only tangentially know: 

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Here’s how it looked when we left.

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Kelley carefully placed the flowers and caulked them to seal the container.  The white on the blue container is the glue.  Through my haste and poor Italian we thought it was clear glue at the purchase.

Underneath the blue lid tells the story.  Pardon my penmanship; I was abnormally shaky. ​​

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Kelley-Jo put this inside the flowered container that she made.​

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Below gives the context of the site.  Containers on sites is common there.

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The land across the water is Italy, the toe of the boot.

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The remaining ashes we spread at and around the house in which Grandma Josephine grew up, before she left for the U.S. in 1933 at age 12.  In this video, we were looking up at her place and pondering after having spread the ashes, and the bells started ringing.  A nice moment:

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So, mission accomplished.  Really, what can one convey with words and pics.  In the end, we're simply saying goodbye to our dad the way he wanted, and letting you know because you shared some part of your life with him. 

Life is short, I hope we can each use the sentiments of our pasts to drive us to enjoy our Today, not to hinder us from living.  Or like Lindsay says when quoting our favorite band, "you gotta shake it loose, so you can get on your way."  The past is over, the future is not guaranteed; there's only Today.  Enjoy life!

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