Angels Amongst Us

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If angels exist and walk on earth, then my grandmother Marialetta Guigno Andolina was one of them. Grandma asked very little from life and gave everything she had to others. She placed great faith in God and her life reflected the values of true Christianity. She was the personification of goodness, charity, and selflessness. My father said that grandma was the best woman he had ever met, which is high praise coming from a son-in-law.

My memory of Grandma is of a small, careworn woman with wire rim glasses perched on her nose. Her hands were wrinkled and lined with veins. Photographs of her when she was much younger than I am now show a woman aged prematurely by hard work and loss. When I look at photographs of her before she married my grandfather, I see a face I don’t recognize, a pretty woman who does not resemble the woman I knew and loved.

Grandma never owned a house or a car, never traveled more than 60 miles from home after she emigrated with my grandfather from Sicily to the United States, and was preceded in death by of four of her nine children. When she went to her church to borrow a bible after her daughters Rose and Lucy, ages 7 and 21, died within three days of each other, she was told by the parish priest (who later fathered a child) that “her kind of people couldn’t be trusted”. For many years, and without complaint, she cared for my grandfather who was blind and a double amputee.

Grandma was deeply religious and constantly quoted the bible. She was kind, generous and loving. She gave money to those who needed it even though she had very little and shared her home with others when they had no place to stay. She always wore an apron with pockets filled with candy for neighborhood children and she was known for crocheting scarves, hats and blankets for friends and family. She once gave a friend the dress off her back and the curtains from her windows because the friend had admired them. Grandma was a wonderful cook and baker who never used a recipe and she loved flowers. I remember her saying, “Give me flowers when I’m alive”...and when she died so many people sent flowers that the hallways of the funeral home were lined with flowers floor to ceiling. For many years I couldn’t stand the smell of flowers or look at a gladiola without thinking of Grandma and those sad, sad days.

My grandmother died when I was 14, too soon for me to fully understand all the wisdom and knowledge she had to share. I wish I had asked her about her childhood and her journey to the United States, about leaving her parents and a sister behind knowing she might never see them again (which she didn't), and how she survived the many losses she suffered. I now understand that her faith in God and the belief that one day she would be reunited with her family were her salvation. My grandmother was not rich, or famous, or well-educated. Like many people she lived her life unnoticed and unappreciated. Despite the hardships she endured, Grandma never lost her faith in God, her belief that there was good in the world, or her ability to find joy in simple things. Her legacy was a life well lived.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. ~George Elliot
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