As a child I was raised by my maternal grandparents and lost my grandfather to Alzheimer's Disease at age 15. I was completely destroyed as both he and my grandmother were my world.
My grandfather was a very kind man with not a bad bone in his body. He was quiet, but at the same time he was very merry, loved to joke, sing Italian opera and loved kids. I couldn't have asked for better grandparents and life was basically perfect, minus the fact I was teased a lot at school for having Italian grandparents who couldn't speak English. They grew all their own food, spent their days making pasta and pasta sauce en-masse. I kind of grew up like someone would have in the early 20th century - at night we would eat cheese after dinner, go for our evening passeggiata and then play cards. The days I would spend in the orchard playing with the chickens or following my grandfather around the garage, or learn to sew. I learnt to read and write in Italian before I went to school, and during school I practised Italian literacy and history for an hour each day.
I never really did fit in with many people because my upbringing was so starkly different to every other child in the 1990s. I still feel dreadful from my grandfather's death and a big part of me mourns a way of living that no longer exists in our modern. For the most part, I feel like no one really gets me, except for people about 50 years older than me with whom I seem to get along quite well.
Fast forward to the last few years and in the space of one year both my dogs died after being poisoned by a next door neighbour, then my grandmother who raised me died quite suddenly. Now only several months my other grandmother with whom I am quite close now has cancer.
Death is inevitable, and I know this, but with all those closest to me dying - particularly now in the past year - I don't really know how to cope. I feel like I have nothing good left in my life or no one to really live for. I would love to regain a new sense of purpose.
