Dear Giorgio, September 10th, 2008
I’m writing this to you, and therefore myself, because the doctors have informed me that I have Alzheimer’s disease and will soon no longer be able to remember much of anything. I’m 77 years old now and have soaked in many rich experiences, which I would find tragic to be lost like dust in the plain. In particular, I would find it most tragic to lose the memory of how I transformed from a child into adult. So let them not be lost, those childhood days in East Harlem spent with my loving family. Let them not be lost, those countless hours my mother and father spent attending to the needs of our family. Let them not be lost, the emotions I felt when we picked ourselves up from Harlem and moved to Brooklyn, which was then foreign to me but proved opportunistic. And let them not be lost, my brother, sister, mother, and father, all of whom now are passed. Let this be a testament to the efforts of my parents and all of the other hard working Italian immigrants in my community, and a story from which the memories of my younger days must not be truly forgotten.
As clear as a freshly cut glass window, I remember the time each day when my mother would come to pick up Maria, Stefano and I from school. Daily, she would bring us fruit from Father’s market on 135th and Lennox. Each of us thought of this, as we watched the hands of the clock move hardily towards the end of the school day from separate classrooms. When we did get out of class, and each of us got our fruit, apples as they so often were, it was on to the five-block stretch between 120th and 115th street along 2nd avenue. The effects of my disease will prove immense when I have forgotten that walk, which seemed to shrink, yet become more grand and ever more familiar as I grew older.
Each day it was the same routine, yet with the passing of time it became different. As a young boy I thought nothing of it, with young Maria just old enough for school and the eldest Stefano beginning to learn things worth boasting about. On these daily walks, sometimes us kids would squabble about something insignificant, or my mother would bring us to the macaroni store on 116th, but often times it seemed to be the same leisurely stroll home.
As certain things changed within myself and without, I came to see that same walk in different lights. The first day of 11th grade was a big change. The city had become much more lively after the soldiers had arrived home that June in 1945. Summer was winding down but the air was different not just for that reason. Some of the other families in our community had lost relatives back home in Italy, after bombing raids in the later years of the war. While some were still grieving their losses, almost everyone was happy to have the war over and eager to enjoy the peace and prosperity. It was then that I realized how fortunate I was to have the life that I did. At times it was hard to get by with the money and resources we had, but I had not lost any family members to the war, and I had a hard working mother and father. They worked each day to put bread on the table for me, tend to the needs of us children around the house, and pave the way for our education.
That day, on the walk home, I looked at my mother with admiring eyes. As I glanced at the cobblestones underneath her feet, I understood that the streets were not in physicality paved with gold, but that the vivacious reflection of the sun’s rays off the pavement was just as grand. I know my brother could feel it too, and while Maria was still just eleven years old, she walked with a content quietness that added only further to the change I felt. While perhaps the change in my perspective occurred more gradually than in one day, I can say with absolute certainty that was the first day I noticed it. After arriving home, I asked my mother for permission and I walked with my brother to my father’s grocery stand. I helped him pack up the stand and upon observation I was pleased to see in him the same thing I saw in my mother. I saw a magnificent love for my siblings and I, which drove him to work so hard for us each day, and to keep himself moving forward despite the constant reminders of our poverty and suboptimal conditions that we lived in back then. He and my Mother wanted better for us.
From then on my life was more filled with meaning, and intensely driven by that same love my parents showed to me. The smell of the fresh bread from the bakery I passed each day was sharper. The sight of salesmen, shoe shiners and workers of all kinds moving about in their daily activities now pleased my eyes. The taste of an apple from my father’s stand had never been sweeter. I poured my new appreciation into my scholarship, finishing high school and being admitted into the City College of New York. I studied hard there in my effort to obtain a college degree and become an industrial engineer.
After two years of my study there, my brother got a job working as a civil engineer for urban development in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. So we picked ourselves up from our long standing home on 116th street and moved everything we owned out to Brooklyn. There my father opened up a new grocery market and we moved into a new apartment next door to a family we had known back in Harlem. Maria enrolled at a new public school to finish her primary school and I continued my education at Brooklyn College.
It was a big jump and at times very scary for all of us, but I could see the comfort that it afforded my mother and father. The added revenue from my brother’s salary allowed us more luxuries and a nicer apartment. So again driven by the love of my parents, I pushed through my feelings of nostalgia and loss of the community I had come from, to make way for new feelings of increased security and passion towards my schooling. I made new friends at Brooklyn College, many of whom were immigrants like myself, and learned more and more about what kinds of things I would be capable of when I too became part of the work force.
So in 1950 I graduated with a degree in Industrial Engineering. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. When I too was able to get a job in public works through the connections my brother had, I felt a sense of pride like no other in knowing that I would now be able to help my parents as they had helped me.
So with my brother and I as working men, and my sister undergoing education to become a librarian, I started a new era of my life. I gave my profession all of the time and energy that I could, drawing on the inspiration of my parents and the thought of my future children having a higher standard of living than I had been raised in. It was then that I had become a man. It was then that I was able to help my family as they had helped me, and feel at peace with this world that I was born into.
Giorgio. You must not forget your father Giuseppe, your mother Antonia, and everything they did for you. You must not forget your brother Stefano, your younger sister Maria, or the wonderful times you three shared. You must not forget the struggle you had as an immigrant family, and how it helped you mature into a loving adult like your father had been.
Remember always,
Giorgio Corbellini
