Comments on: Grandma’s House

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 16:38:19 +0000

Sorry, Mel. How did you turn out so sweet and loving?

By: Karyn Friedman-Everham

Karyn Friedman-Everham — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 18:48:00 +0000

I love this. Thank you for sharing your grandma, Karen.

By: Becky

Becky — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 17:43:32 +0000

Lovely tribute. Just yesterday I talked with a friend about her lack of ever knowing a grandparent–all died before or soon after she was born. What a terrible void to have in your life.

By: Melanie

Melanie — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 16:02:18 +0000

I wonder, if your grandma and grandpa had written about you, Duffy and Karen, would they have written as movingly and poetically as their grandkids have about them? My nonni didn’t speak English and I never spent a night at their houses. Maria Zaninelli, mom’s mom, would always say to me, “Fa niza girl. You ‘elpa you mom.” Emilia Bortolanza, dad’s mom from the North, never said anything directly to me that I remember. My nonno made wine and grape juice from the Concord grapes he grew in their backyard. The odor when he opened the cellar doors nearly made us drunk.

By: Art (Duffy) Lipski

Art (Duffy) Lipski — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 14:12:52 +0000

I, too, love my grandma. She was the mistress of safety. When my wife and children visited from our home in Kentucky, grandma made sure that we had lots of covers on our beds and on our bodies even though it was hot, muggy summer and all the windows had been painted shut.

Grandpa was my hero. We would spend hours in the basement straightening old bent nails. Time for a break? We would go upstairs for a Hershey bar and a glass of grape juice…always diluted with water. Lasts longer that way.