Author’s note: This is the first installment of a serialized story that recounts my return to Italy and my grandfather’s journey to the U.S.

My grandparents poured into me all the Italy they couldn’t fit into their children. To others they spoke broken English, but to me, the first born grandchild, it was always their Italian, so I became the only one who could understand them. As they neared retirement, I was placed in their care on those rare occasions my parents weren’t around. I was their assistant who ran errands and extended their reach; my life became an internship into the ways they thought, the ways they felt, and the ways they got things done. Their ways of doing and being were always explained more through stories than detailed instructions.

Grandpa was an immigrant who had never really arrived, one who carried the burlap sack of his past wherever he went, a weight that slowed him down in the fast moving, modern America of television and astronauts. Whatever Italy was to me in my youth came from him. He reflected a dual image of my Italian heritage: one of pride and one of embarrassment, images that constantly fought one another.