No, it wouldn’t sadden me.
I know about this third-hand, since my mom wasn’t married to my dad when it happened. After WWII, Rosaline was at the height of her confidence (and attractiveness). She got a job in Harrisburg, met a co-worker, and they courted for about two years. I’ve never seen pictures of him, nor heard his personality described, so I don’t know how that was. He was Protestant, but his family wasn’t opposed to him dating or marrying outside his faith. Rosaline’s family didn’t make scenes about her romance, but they were constantly twittering about it, like the pigeons they are, and giving press to Nice Italian Catholic men, who they implied they were lining up for her when “this” would be over. Because no Pinto would marry outside the Church, right?
Well, when crunch time came (and two years was about the upward limit for a courtship in those days), he presented her with a ring on Valentine’s Day. She was pleased, but didn’t accept outright. She wanted him to convert. Not just her family, but she herself wanted him to. The Pintos and Sabatines have strong family ties; constricting, but strong nevertheless. She’d spent her entire life in the Church, and didn’t want to abandon it, and didn’t want to become a black sheep to her family. My mom says that they wouldn’t have shunned her, but she must have known that their constant mumbling and nagging would have worn her down, and she wasn’t strong enough to forsake them. Well, he didn’t want to convert, and that was that.
She resisted being set up with these placebos, returned to Roseto, and stayed there until last night. In later years, she had a “companion”; a widower who liked touring historical places with her, but there was no talk of marriage; they just didn’t want to be alone. I don’t think she wanted a husband for the sake of it; she just wanted to marry that one guy.
Sigh. I can still see that house: right out of Scorsese, with the thick glass candy dish, with a cover on it, on the segmented coffee table, and the furniture with plastic on it, and the dining room table that was never bare. Aunt Rosie was a fantastic cook, but the kitchen stunk because she insisted on making a compost heap. One of the snotty Ohio relatives once said, “Rosaline, your house smells!” and she almost cried! She and her mother, when her mom was alive, would sit by the hour and crochet while watching soaps. I still have the crib blanket one or the other made for me. People have mentioned stockpiling (of canned goods and such) in other threads. Rosaline called it “hoarding”, as people did during WWII. She never hoarded anything perishable, but when cyclamates were banned, she amassed flats of Fresca and Orange Crush that almost covered a whole wall. I was allowed some, and I’m here to tell you, soft drinks really were that good, back them. On her sewing table, she had a dish for pins that had a tiny statuette of the Venus de Milo–and she put a top on her! Did she find it offensive, or was she just compelled to make clothes for everything? I was too shy to ask. They had a cuckoo clock. When I was very small, they had a poodle named Andre.
I say “they”, but I still think she got a raw deal living with Lenny. She had to do everything a wife does without getting what a wife gets. I had hoped she would have at least one year without him. But he outlived her, and Grammy is going to outlive frikken everyone!
Okay, I’ve come this far, and I’ve uncovered a bad memory. (That’s okay, Rilch; let it out!) She had a collection of Lladro figurines. There were two that especially charmed me; a girl, who I thought looked like Clara, from Heidi, petting geese. I’d often expressed my admiration. When my mom wanted to unload our upright piano, she gave it to Rosaline with the explicit agreement that we were to get those Lladros, or at least one, in trade. Not all the Lladros, although that would have been good too; just the two that I liked, or at least one.
Rosaline gave the piano to the church and the Lladros, all of them, to Valerie. Tony’s daughter. I think we’ve all known a Valerie, so you should understand when I say that there was no use pursuing that.
Every year, my mom makes noises about trying to find that figurine, and I always tell her to forget it. First, because the Lladro line drops figures all the time, and doesn’t revive them, second, because it’s not my mom’s responsibility, and third, because I didn’t want a Lladro: I wanted that one. My request wasn’t honored, or even taken seriously, and I just wanted to accept it and move on.
Anyway. Her favorite song was “Love Walked In”. Eve, if you’re reading this, care to join me, because I tend to forget the words? “Love walked right in and drove the shadows away…” Is that how it goes?
and because my grandmother (her aunt and Rosie’s sister) took shameless advantage of her. Even before Grammy became disabled, she had already developed the habit of demanding that Rosaline take care of every little thing she didn’t feel like doing.
death kinda sucks…