I'm Nina. This is a Story About a House.
Where It Began
Cape Coral is located on the Southwest end of Florida, consisting of a quiet, serene neighborhood that felt like a second home to me. This was not just any vacation spot: This was my Italian grandparent's vacation home, or in my family's terms, "The Florida House". The Florida House had that magic feeling of childhood memories when everything is kind of blurry, but you are close to the ground, looking up at the world around you. When I close my eyes and think of all of the memories I have at this house, I see the sun shining very bright, and pool floaties, jumping in the pool with goggles on and picking lizards up by their tails. I can smell the Sunday pasta cooking in the kitchen that my grandma used to make; She always used the small penne because the kids loved it. I can smell the house, clean and a little bit like the ocean and sunscreen. This house had such a smell that we would smell our clothes out of the suitcase when we got back to Chicago, and we would smile and say, "Smells like the Florida house." This house had been in my family for over 25 years. It sold 2 years ago right after my grandfather passed. Due to COVID-19, we were lucky to spend our last 3 months in this house-- all the cousins, aunt and uncles, and my grandfather. My grandfather spent the last 3 months in the place he loved the most-- The Florida House.
An Epic Love Story
Pictured on the right are my grandparents, Jean and Rocco. They actually have a pretty iconic love story that led to the purchase of this house. My grandparents grew up in Bari, Italy, a southern part of Italy with a very tight-knit family community. My grandmother planned on moving to the US after being promised to marry a man who had just left Bari for work. My grandfather, who worked at the postal office in Bari at the time, had been in love with my grandmother since they were children. After receiving the documents that would send my grandmother off to the US to marry another man, my grandfather ripped up the documents, causing her marriage proposal to crumble. Shortly after, he professed his love for my grandmother, and they soon married and moved to Venezuela to share their love for the beach. Crazy, I know. However, their time in Venezuela made it imperative that they own a vacation home where they could take their own children, and their children's children. About 30 years after moving to Chicago, the Florida House was purchased, and we could all agree that our fondest memories of family are within those walls at that house.
Why COVID Brought Us Together
COVID-19 was universally strange for everyone. My family has superstitions that everything happens for a reason, and for us, this reason was to spend the last 3 months of my grandpa's life in this house together as a family. My grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease shortly after the death of my grandmother about 14 years ago. Since that day, he did not eat dinner alone for one night. My mom and her two sisters coordinated to make sure that my grandpa was happy, healthy, and in good company so the loss of his other half did not impact him, along with slowing down the course of his illness. Around the time of 2020, my grandfather had Alzheimer's for almost 12 years, and we knew that this would be his last time being in this house, or stepping foot on the beach. It was COVID, and out of nowhere, we saw this opportunity to spend an extended amount of time together in the place he would be most happy.
Be
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Happy Memories = Special Meaning
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The photos on the left demonstrate how happy we were in the Florida House, and why we all have such an emotional connection to it. I was still an infant when I first came to this house, but it being the only place I distinctly remember besides home, visiting twice a year for 20 years. I correlate the Florida House with all of my childhood memories. I still remember where my grandma hid the Jenga set-- she got mad when we did not clean up after ourselves. I remember where our parents hid the sweets, because my cousins and I would sneak them while our parents were sleeping. I remember the air mattresses piled up in the living room, complaining that this person just farted and this person snores. I remember getting sunburnt for the first time, and aloe being in the fridge behind all of the barbeque condiments. Dangling my feet off of the dock. Catching a crab instead of fish. Where to not walk barefoot or you'll get splinters. The sand on the bottom of the showers after a long day at the beach. Cold showers because 12 people had already showered before me. Seeing my baby cousins learn how to swim in the pool. Crying that I didn't get a turn on the Vespa. The memories attached to the Florida House are the closest things I have to remembering my childhood. We all feel this way. Remembering this house is a portal to a magical place that could never be replaced, and I am happy to share its meaning with you, and what part COVID and my grandfather's illness had to do with my last three months ever spent here.
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About Rocky: Why He Made This House So Special
Rocky posing on his dock next to a rainbow. Captured May, 2020.
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My grandfather was a simple man. He was always the quietest in the room, but held the most thought about any given situation. He was the type of person who did not feel the need to share an opinion because life is too short to complain about things we cannot change. He had plenty of one-liners, some of our favorite ranging from "Why me?" or "And that's it." My grandpa got nervous with a lot of chaos, and when staying in the Florida House when we were little, he got scared when we had wet feet in the house because he thought we would slip. If there was conflict, he would just give a shrug, a wholesome, Italian hand in the air shrug. He did not like problems, and chose to put his energy into telling stories about being an alter-boy in Italy or how only prisoners have tattoos. After being diagnosed with his disease, we acted like it was our first time hearing these stories every single time he re-told them. During our 3 months together, we developed a routine. Every morning, my whole family would be sitting outside tog-
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ther having breakfast. We talked quietly until my grandpa woke up. Without fail, he would open the sliding door looking like the happiest person in the world. The biggest smile, the joy shining through his greying eyes, and he would say "What is everyone doing here all together?" He forgot, every morning, that we were all there. And every morning, we were greeted with the happiest grandpa in the world because his family was together. Already having a cup of coffee and some sweet breakfast set out for him, we would sit and talk for hours, but Rocky didn't usually say much. He would look out by the pool or canal, enjoying the hot weather and all of his grandkids bantering with each other. Occasionally, he would tell one of us to relax, or someone would say "What do you think Papa?", to which he would just give one of his iconic shrugs, He didn't care, he was just happy to be there.
A Feeling of Connectedness During a Time of Disconnect
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As I was saying earlier, COVID was weird, and everyone was trying to figure out what the rest of our lives were going to look like. It was a scary, unknown time where our futures' were being jeopardized by a force that we could not control. Through online school and not being able to see my friends, there was a common sense of isolation in the world, almost like I lived in a dystopian version of the reality I once knew. I feel as if it has been a a theme that many people have reached breakthroughs during this period, everyone's case differing on their circumstances. I most definitely had my own. The Florida House has much to do with my last memories of my grandpa, and yes they are all melancholy as the house is now gone. But there was this feeling that I think could never be repeated in my lifetime. The feeling of disconnectedness from COVID was real, and I was lucky enough to spend it with my extended family. I believe this happened for a reason, and I have never felt connected more to my family in a time where connection with the world was dwindling. How odd that I was in this situation, isolated from the world with the people I love the most. We spent our time together doing the things we loved the most: Eating delicious, homemade food, drinking some stiff drinks, laughing, dancing, playing games, fishing, beaching, and talking for hours. I even made a playlist to play my grandpa's songs for him so he could get in on the fun too. After mornings with my grandpa, my cousins and I would go down by the dock until the sun went down. We learned everything about each other, what we want for our futures, what is going on in the dating realm. We talked about how sad it is that my grandpa was soon about to pass, but how beautiful it is that we are all here, in no rush. We cried together, laughed, got drunk, smoked cigars. It was almost like time froze for three months-- I mean, it honestly did. I experienced joy and love within my own little world stronger than I have ever felt before in that house, with those people.
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Rocky with his favorite breakfast: coffee and cookies. Captured May 2020
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1444' Viking Court's Everlasting Impact
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The Florida House represents a lot of things: Love, loss, family, childhood, connection, and growing up. From the beginning, it was as simple as family vacations, where a bunch of beach bums got to sit in the sand and eat coconut shrimp. Where I, a kid, developed my everlasting memories of my childhood, and some of my only memories of grandmother. It began with my mom and her sisters getting taken care of by their parents to taking care of their own father, ensuring that his last three months were worth living for. This house represents growing up, and growing old, simply by watching my dynamic change within my own family and how we spend our time together as adults. A place where we went to enjoy each other, to value how beautiful it is to have a family that loves and supports each other until their very last moments. My memories of the Florida House from my childhood are now parallel to the memories that I made during these three months, and I have never felt so much love in a time when reality was a far away place. COVID-19 was hard, but it gave my family and I a peaceful farewell to the most incredible man I will ever know, my grandfather. I will forever cry when I hear a Frank Sinatra song, as me and my grandpa would sing his songs together by the pool over coffee. I will always think of him when I see a red lifeguard baseball cap, because he was the lifeguard at the Florida House. Pictured on the left is my cousin who was the first one to take the leap in getting this tattoo after the house sold and my grandpa passed, and soon enough, all of us will have this tattoo to honor the time that we have spent together at this house. Most of all, the biggest thanks is to my grandparents for demonstrating unconditional love and how important it is to spend time with the people who love you the most: family. Rest in peace to my beautiful grandmother, Jean, and my wonderful grandfather, Rocky.
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